But I am not going to seem as if I were 'overawing you with a letter,' so to speak.

My opponent says, 'Paul's letters are weighty and telling, but his personality is weak and his delivery is beneath contempt.'

I wish you would put up with a little 'folly' from me. Do put up with me,

but I am afraid of your thoughts getting seduced from a single devotion to Christ, just as the serpent beguiled Eve with his cunning.

You put up with it all right, when some interloper preaches a second Jesus (not the Jesus I preached), or when you are treated to a Spirit different from the Spirit you once received, and to a different gospel from what I gave you! Why not put up with me?

I am no speaker, perhaps, but knowledge I do possess; I never failed to make myself intelligible to you.

But perhaps I did wrong in taking a humble place that you might have a high one ??I mean, in preaching the gospel of God to you for nothing!

I repeat, no one is to think me a fool; but even so, pray bear with me, fool as I am, that I may have my little boast as well as others!

You put up with fools so readily, you who know so much!

You put up with a man who assumes control of your souls, with a man who spends your money, with a man who dupes you, with a man who gives himself airs, with a man who flies in your face.

I am quite ashamed to say I was not equal to that sort of thing! But let them vaunt as they please, I am equal to them (mind, this is the role of a fool!).

Ministers of Christ? yes perhaps, but not as much as I am (I am mad to talk like this!), with all my labours, with all my lashes, with all my time in prison ??a record longer far than theirs. I have been often at the point of death;

five times have I got forty lashes (all but one) from the Jews,

but I was lowered in a basket from a loophole in the wall, and so managed to escape his clutches.)

There is nothing to be gained by this sort of thing, but as I am obliged to boast, I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord.

Of an experience like that I am prepared to boast, but not of myself personally ??not except as regards my weaknesses.

but he told me, "It is enough for you to have my grace: it is in weakness that [my] power is fully felt." So I am proud to boast of all my weakness, and thus to have the power of Christ resting on my life.

Now this is playing the fool! But you forced me to it, instead of coming forward yourselves and vouching for me. That was what I deserved; for, 'nobody' as I am, I am not one whit inferior to these precious 'apostles.'

Here am I all ready to pay you my third visit. And I will not be a burden to you; I want yourselves and not your money. Children have not to put money by for their parents; that is what parents do for their children.

But let that pass, you say; I was not a burden to you, no, but I was clever enough to dupe you with my tricks? Was I?

That will prove to you that I am indeed a spokesman of Christ. It is no weak Christ you have to do with, but a Christ of power.

Put yourselves to the proof, not me; test yourselves, to see if you are in the faith. Do you not understand that Christ Jesus is within you? Otherwise you must be failures.

But I trust you will find I am no failure,

and I pray to God that you may not go wrong ??not to prove I am a success, that is not the point, but that you should come right, even if I seemed to be a failure.

(Fail or succeed, I cannot work against the truth but for it!)

I am writing thus to you in absence, so that when I do come I may not have to deal sharply with you; I have the Lord's authority for that, but he gave it to me for building you up, not for demolishing you.

PAUL an apostle ??not appointed by men nor commissioned by any man but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead, ??2 with all the brothers who are beside me, to the churches of Galatia;

no man put it into my hands, no man taught me what it meant, I had it by a revelation of Jesus Christ.

But the God who had set me apart from my very birth called me by his grace,

But even my companion Titus, Greek though he was, was not obliged to be circumcised.

But we refused to yield for a single instant to their claims; we were determined that the truth of the gospel should hold good for you.

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face. The man stood self-condemned.

Before certain emissaries of James arrived, he ate along with the Gentile Christians; but when they arrived, he began to draw back and hold aloof, because he was afraid of the circumcision party.

But I saw they were swerving from the true line of the gospel; so I said to Cephas in presence of them all, "If you live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, though you are a Jew yourself, why do you oblige the Gentiles to become Jews?" ??15 We may be Jews by birth and not 'Gentile sinners,'

but since we know a man is justified simply by faith in Jesus Christ and not by doing what the Law commands, we ourselves have believed in Christ Jesus so as to get justified by faith in Christ and not by doing what the Law commands ??for by doing what the Law commands no person shall be justified.

I do not annul God's grace; but if righteousness comes by way of the Law, then indeed Christ's death was useless.

Now the Promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring; it is not said, 'and to your offsprings' in the plural, but in the singular and to your offspring ??which is Christ.

(an intermediary implies more than one party, but God is one).

but Scripture has consigned all without exception to the custody of sin, in order that the promise due to faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who have faith.

But faith has come, and we are wards no longer;

but when the time had fully expired, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the Law,

So you are servant no longer but son, and as son you are also heir, all owing to God.

but now that you know God ??or rather, are known by God ??how is it you are turning back again to the weakness and poverty of the Elemental spirits? Why do you want to be enslaved all over again by them?

These men make much of you ??yes, but for dishonest ends; they want to debar you from us, so that you may make much of them.

but while the son of the slave-woman was born by the flesh, the son of the free-woman was born by the promise.

But the Jerusalem on high is free, and she is 'our' mother.

but just as in the old days the son born by the flesh persecuted the son born by the Spirit, so it is still to-day.

However, what does the scripture say? Put away the slave-woman and her son, for the son of the slave-woman shall not be heir along with the son of the free-woman.

Hence we are children of no slave-woman, my brothers, but of the free-woman,

in Christ Jesus circumcision is not valid, neither is uncircumcision, but only faith active in love.

I feel persuaded in the Lord that you will not go wrong. But he who unsettles you will have to meet his doom, no matter who he is.

Brothers, you were called to be free; only, do not make your freedom an opening for the flesh, but serve one another in love.

But the harvest of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, good temper, kindliness, generosity, fidelity,

But no boasting for me, none except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I crucified to the world.

to make us redound to the praise of his glory by being the first to put our hope in Christ.

above all the angelic Rulers, Authorities, Powers, and Lords, above every Name that is to be named not only in this age but in the age to come ??22 he has put everything under his feet and set him as head over everything for the church,

But, dead in trespasses as we were, God was so rich in mercy that for his great love to us

For it is by grace you have been saved, as you had faith; it is not your doing but God's gift,

in his own flesh he put an end to the feud of the Law with its code of commands, so as to make peace by the creation of a new Man in himself out of both parties,

But each one of us is granted his own grace, as determined by the full measure of Christ's gift.

Be angry but do not sin; never let the sun set upon your exasperation,

Let the thief steal no more; rather let him work and put his hands to an honest task, so as to have something to contribute to the needy.

Let no bad word pass your lips, but only such speech as is good for edification, as occasion may require, words that are gracious and a means of grace to those who hear them.

So do not be senseless, but understand what is the Lord's will;

and do not get drunk with wine ??that means profligacy ??but be filled with the Spirit,

in order to have the church as his very own, standing before him in all her glory, with never a spot or wrinkle or any such flaw, but consecrated and unblemished.

As for you fathers, do not exasperate your children, but bring them up in the discipline and on the admonitions of the Lord.

Be sure that everyone, slave or free, will be paid back by the Lord and Master for the good he has done.

put on God's armour so as to be able to stand against the stratagems of the devil.

For we have to struggle, not with blood and flesh but with the angelic Rulers, the angelic Authorities, the potentates of the dark present, the spirit-forces of evil in the heavenly sphere.

put on salvation as your helmet, and take the Spirit as your sword (that is, the word of God),

but the former proclaim Christ for their own ends, with mixed motives, intending to annoy me as I lie in prison.

The outcome of all this, I know, will be my release, as you continue to pray for me, and as I am provided with the Spirit of Jesus Christ ??20 my eager desire and hope being that I may never feel ashamed but that now as ever I may do honour to Christ in my own person by fearless courage. Whether that means life or death, no matter!

But then, if it is to be life here below, that means fruitful work for me. So ??well, I cannot tell which to choose;

But for your sakes it is necessary I should live on here below.

never acting for private ends or from vanity, but humbly considering each other the better man,

but emptied himself by taking the nature of a servant; born in human guise

But you know how he has stood the test, how he has served with me in the gospel, like a son helping his father.

And he was ill, nearly dead with illness. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me, to save me from having one sorrow upon another.

Well then, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. I am repeating this word 'rejoice' in my letter, but that does not tire me and it is the safe course for you. ??2 Beware of these dogs, these wicked workmen, the incision-party!

But for Christ's sake I have learned to count my former gains a loss;

and be found at death in him, possessing no legal righteousness of my own but the righteousness of faith in Christ, the divine righteousness that rests on faith.

Not that I have already attained this or am already perfect, but I press forward to appropriate it, because I have been appropriated myself by Christ Jesus.

But we are a colony of heaven, and we wait for the Saviour who comes from heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ,

Never be anxious, but always make your requests known to God in prayer and supplication with thanksgiving;

It was a great joy to me in the Lord that your care for me could revive again; for what you lacked was never the care but the chance of showing it.

But you were kind enough to take your share in my trouble.

You Philippians are well aware that in the early days of the gospel, when I had left Macedonia, no church but yourselves had any financial dealings with me;

Your debt to me is fully paid and more than paid! I am amply supplied with what you have sent by Epaphroditus, a fragrant perfume, the sort of sacrifice that God approves and welcomes.

Once you were estranged yourselves, your hearts hostile to him in evildoing; but now he has reconciled you by dying in his mortal body,

I am suffering now on your behalf, but I rejoice in that; I would make up the full sum of all that Christ has to suffer in my person on behalf of the church, his Body;

in him you have been circumcised with no material circumcision that cuts flesh from the body, but with Christ's own circumcision,

they get the name of 'wisdom' with their self-imposed devotions, with their fasting, with their rigorous discipline of the body, but they are of no value, they simply pamper the flesh!

So put to death those members that are on earth: sexual vice, impurity, appetite, evil desire, and lust (which is idolatry),

but off with them all now, off with anger, rage, malice, slander, foul talk!

and put on the new nature which is renewed in the likeness of its Creator for the knowledge of him.

Servants, obey your masters here below at every point; do not work simply when their eye is on you, like those who court human favour, but serve them with a single heart out of reverence for your Lord and Master.

for the wrongdoer will be paid back for his wrongdoing ??there will be no favour shown.

let your talk always have a saving salt of grace about it, and learn how to answer any question put to you.

for our gospel came to you not with mere words but also with power and with the holy Spirit, with ample conviction on our part (you know what we were to you, for your own good),