so that we may proclaim the good news to the regions beyond you, not boasting about what has already been done in someone else’s area of ministry.

He that boasteth, however, in the Lord, let him boast;

For, not he that commendeth himself, he, is approved, but he whom, the Lord, doth commend.

Would that you could put up with a little "folly" from me! Nay, do bear with me.

I have a divine jealousy on your behalf; for I betrothed you to one only husband, even to Christ, that I might present you to him, a chaste virgin.

But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

If indeed some one is coming to preach another Jesus, whom I did not preach, or you are receiving a Spirit other than you once received, or another gospel which you did not accept before, you would do well to bear with me.

For I reckon that I am in no respect behind your superapostolic apostles.

Though untrained in public speaking, I am certainly not untrained in knowledge. Indeed, we have always made that clear to you in everything.

Is it a sin, forsooth, that I humbled myself that you might be exalted, in preaching the gospel to you free of cost?

Other assemblies, I despoiled, receiving supplies that I might minister, unto you;

And when I was present with you, and wanted, I was chargeable to no man: for that which was lacking to me the brethren which came from Macedonia supplied: and in all things I have kept myself from being burdensome unto you, and so will I keep myself.

Truth of Christ is in me, that, this boasting, shall not be silenced unto me, in the regions of Achaia.

Why? Because I do not love you? God knows that I do!

I am doing and will continue to do this in order to cut away the ground from under those who wish some cause for slander; and that the ground of their boasting may appear as does mine.

I say again, let no one think me a fool. Or, if you must, at least bear with me as a fool, that I, too, may do a little boasting.

That which I speak, I speak it not after the Lord, but as it were foolishly, in this confidence of boasting.

Seeing that many glory after the flesh, I will glory also.

For ye suffer fools gladly because that ye yourselves are wise.

I say that I was weak, and yet for whatever reason any one is bold (I speak in mere folly) I too am bold.

Are they ministers of Christ? So am I. I am talking like a man that has gone crazy -- as such I am superior! -- serving Him with labors greater by far, with far more imprisonments, with floggings vastly worse, and often at the point of death.

Five times I have been given one less than forty lashes, by the Jews.

Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.

If, to boast, is needful, in the things that concern my weakness, will I boast.

The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, he who is blessed forever, knows that I am telling the truth.

When I was in Damascus, the Governor under King Aretas had the gates of that city guarded, so as to arrest me,

I know a man who belongs to the Messiah. Fourteen years ago whether in his body or outside of his body, I do not know, but God knows that man was snatched away to the third heaven.

I know that this man—whether in the body or out of the body I don’t know, God knows—

How that he was caught away into paradise, and heard unspeakable things, which it is not allowable for a man to utter:

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

For if I want to boast, I will not be a fool, because I will be telling the truth. But I will spare you, so that no one can credit me with something beyond what he sees in me or hears from me,

It was for this reason, lest I should be over-elated, that there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to buffet me, lest I should be over-elated.

Concerning this, three times over I supplicated the Lord that it might leave me;

but he has answered me. "My grace is sufficient for you; it is in weakness that my power is perfected."

Most gladly therefore will I boast rather of my weakness, that over me like a tent may be pitched the power of Christ. That is why I rejoice in weakness, in ill-treatment, in troubles, in persecutions and calamities for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then am I strong.

I have been forced by you to become foolish, though it was right for my praise to have come from you: for in no way was I less than the chief of the Apostles, though I am nothing.

The marks that signify the genuine apostle were exhibited among you in my perfect patience, in signs, wonders, and wonder-works.

In what respect, then, were you inferior to the other churches, except that I myself was not a burden to you? Forgive me this wrong!

It is now the third time that I have been ready to come to see you, and I will never ask you for financial support, for it is not your money but you yourselves that I want; for children are not by duty bound to lay up money for their parents, but parents for their children.

I shall be glad to sacrifice myself and all I have for your service, even tho' it should happen that the more I love you, the less I should be beloved.

But though it be granted that I was not a burden to you, yet, you say, this was my cunning with which I caught you by a trick.

I did not make any money out of you through anybody that I sent to you, did I?

Do you think that all this time I am defending myself to you? It is before the presence of God that I am speaking in Christ; and all, beloved, for your upbuilding.

For I dread that perhaps, when I come, I may not find you to be such as I wish, and that I may be found by you such as you do not wish; I dread lest there should be quarrels, jealousy, tempers, party spirit, slandering, gossip, arrogance, tumults;

I fear that when I come my God will again humiliate me in your presence, and I will grieve for many who sinned before and have not repented of the moral impurity, sexual immorality, and promiscuity they practiced.

This is the third time that I am coming to you. From the mouth of two or three witnesses will every word be made certain.

I have said beforehand, and do say beforehand, - as present the second time, although now absent, unto them who before sinned, and unto all the rest, - that, if I come again, I will not spare.

seeing that ye seek a proof of Christ that speaketh in me; who to you-ward is not weak, but is powerful in you:

And verily, though it came of weakness that he was crucified, yet liveth he through the power of God: and we no doubt are weak in him; but we shall live with him, by the might of God among you.

Examine yourselves to see if you are in the faith; put your own selves to the proof. Or do you not know, your own selves, that Jesus Christ is in you, unless indeed you fail to abide the proof?

But I hope you will find that I abide the proof.

And my prayer to God is that you may do no evil; not in order that I may appear approved, but that you may do what is noble, though I should seem unable to abide the proof.

We are glad when we are weak, and ye strong. This also we wish for, even that ye were perfect.

For this reason I am writing thus while absent, so that when I come, I may not have to deal sharply, according to the authority which the Lord gave me for building up, and not for pulling down.

and all the brethren that are with me, unto the churches of Galatia:

who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil age in accordance with the will of our God and Father,

I am amazed that you are so soon shifting your ground, and deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ,

Which is not, another, only there are, some, that are troubling you, and wishing to change the glad-message of the Christ.

But even though I myself or an angel from heaven were to preach any gospel other than that which I did preach to you, let him be accursed.

I have said it before, and I now repeat it, if any one is preaching a gospel to you other than that which you have received, let him be accursed.

Think you that I am now trying to conciliate men or God? Or am I "seeking to please men"? If I were still seeking to please men, I should not be a slave of Christ.

For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel I preach is not man-made;

For, in fact, it was not from man that I received or learnt it, but by a revelation from Jesus Christ.

For ye have heard, as to my own manner of life, at one time, in Judaism, how that, exceedingly, was I persecuting the assembly of God, and laying it waste,

And I went farther in the Jews' religion than a number of my generation among my countrymen, having a more burning interest in the beliefs handed down from my fathers.

and had called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me, so that I might preach his gospel among the Gentiles, without consulting a human being,

neither went I up to Jerusalem to them that were apostles before me: but I went away into Arabia; and again I returned unto Damascus.

(In what I am now writing, I call God to witness that I am telling the truth.)

After that, I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia,

and was unknown by face to the assemblies of Judea, that are in Christ,

Only it came to their ears that he who at one time was cruel to us is now preaching the faith which before had been attacked by him;

After that, fourteen years later, I, again, went up unto Jerusalem, with Barnabas, taking with me Titus also;

(I went up at that time in obedience to a revelation). And I laid before them the gospel which I am wont to preach among the Gentiles. I did this privately before those in authority, lest by any means I should be running, or should already have run, in vain.

But they did not insist that even my companion Titus, although he was a Greek, should be circumcised,

And that because of the false brothers let in secretly, who came searching out our free condition which we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might make servants of us;

To them we did not yield submission even for an hour, in order that the truth of the gospel might abide unshaken among you.

But of those seeming to be something what they were at that time makes no difference to me: God does not receive the face of man: for those seeming to me to be prominent added nothing extra:

On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised, just as Peter has with the gospel for the circumcised

For, he that energised in Peter, into an apostleship to the circumcision, energised also in me, for the nations, -

and when they recognized the grace which had been given to me, James and Cephas and John, then thought to be pillars, gave to Barnabas and to me the right hand of fellowship. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the Jews.

They stipulated only that we should remember the poor, which very thing indeed I was quite eager to do.

For, before that certain came from James, with them of the nations, used he to eat; whereas, when they came, he used to withdraw, and keep himself separate, fearing them of the circumcision;

And the rest of the Jewish Christians also dissimulated with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy.

But when I saw that they were not walking a straight path, in the presence of the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all. "If you, although you are a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, why do you try to compel the Gentiles to become Jews?

We, though we are Jews by birth and not outcasts of Gentile origin, know that no one is pronounced righteous as the result of obedience to Law, but only through faith in Christ Jesus.

"yet because we know that no man is justified by the works of the Law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, we ourselves also have put our faith in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the Law; for "By the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified."

Now if, in our efforts to come into right standing with God through union with Christ, we have proved ourselves to be sinners like the heathen themselves, does that make Christ a party to our sin? Of course not.

For, if, the things that I pulled down, these, again, I build, a transgressor, I prove, myself, to be.

For I, through the law, have become dead to the law, so that I might be living to God.

I have been put to death on the cross with Christ; still I am living; no longer I, but Christ is living in me; and that life which I now am living in the flesh I am living by faith, the faith of the Son of God, who in love for me, gave himself up for me.

O foolish Galatians, by what strange powers have you been tricked, to whom it was made clear that Jesus Christ was put to death on the cross?

Answer me this one question, "Is it on the ground of your obedience to the Law that you received the Spirit, or is it because, when you heard, you believed?"

Are ye so unwise, that after ye have begun in the spirit, ye would now end in the flesh?

So many things there ye have suffered in vain, if that be in vain.

He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?

Why, it is as with Abraham, he had faith in God and that was counted to him as righteousness.

Notice then that the true sons of Abraham are children of faith.

And the holy Writings, seeing before the event that God would give the Gentiles righteousness by faith, gave the good news before to Abraham, saying, In you will all the nations have a blessing.

'Blessed in thee shall be all the nations;' so that those of faith are blessed with the faithful Abraham,

but a curse rests on those who have their root in the works of the Law; for it is written. Cursed is every one that continues not in all the things written in the Book of the Law, to do them.