As for Titus, remember that he is a partner with me, and is my comrade in my labours for you. And as for our brethren, remember that they are delegates from the Churches, and are men in whom Christ is glorified.

As to the services which are being rendered to God's people, it is really unnecessary for me to write to you.

For, by the practical proof of it which you exhibit in this service, you cause God to be extolled for your fidelity to your professed adherence to the Good News of the Christ, and for the liberality of your contributions for them and for all who are in need,

I beseech you not to compel me when present to make a bold display of the confidence with which I reckon I shall show my 'courage' against some who reckon that we are guided by worldly principles.

For, though we are still living in the world, it is no worldly warfare that we are waging.

The weapons with which we fight are not human weapons, but are mighty for God in overthrowing strong fortresses.

For they say "His letters are authoritative and forcible, but his personal presence is unimpressive, and as for eloquence, he has none."

Let such people take this into their reckoning, that whatever we are in word by our letters when absent, the same are we also in act when present.

For we have not the 'courage' to rank ourselves among, or compare ourselves with, certain persons distinguished by their self-commendation. Yet they are not wise, measuring themselves, as they do, by one another and comparing themselves with one another.

If indeed some visitor is proclaiming among you another Jesus whom we did not proclaim, or if you are receiving a Spirit different from the One you have already received or a Good News different from that which you have already welcomed, your toleration is admirable!

For men of this stamp are sham apostles, dishonest workmen, assuming the garb of Apostles of Christ.

Wise as you yourselves are, you find pleasure in tolerating fools.

Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I.

Are they servants of Christ? (I speak as if I were out of my mind.)

You are imagining, all this time, that we are making our defense at your bar. In reality it is as in God's presence and in communion with Christ that we speak; but, dear friends, it is all with a view to your progress in goodness.

For though it is true that He was crucified through weakness, yet He now lives through the power of God. We also are weak, sharing His weakness, but with Him we shall be full of life to deal with you through the power of God.

Test yourselves to discover whether you are true believers: put your own selves under examination. Or do you not know that Jesus Christ is within you, unless you are insincere?

But I trust that you will recognize that we are not insincere.

and it is a joy to us when we are powerless, but you are strong. This we also pray for--the perfecting of your characters.

and all the brethren who are with me: To the Churches of Galatia.

I marvel that you are so readily leaving Him who called you by the grace of Christ, and are adhering to a different Good News.

For other "Good News" there is none; but there are some persons who are troubling you, and are seeking to distort the Good News concerning Christ.

As soon as I saw that they were not walking uprightly in the spirit of the Good News, I said to Peter, before them all, "If you, though you are a Jew, live as a Gentile does, and not as a Jew, how can you make the Gentiles follow Jewish customs?

You and I, though we are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners,

But if while we are seeking in Christ acquittal from guilt we ourselves are convicted of sin, Christ then encourages us to sin! No, indeed.

Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now going to reach perfection through what is external?

Notice therefore that those who possess faith are true sons of Abraham.

So we see that it is those who possess faith that are blessed with believing Abraham.

All who are depending upon their own obedience to the Law are under a curse, for it is written, "Cursed is every one who does not remain faithful to all the precepts of the Law, and practise them."

But Scripture has shown that all mankind are the prisoners of sin, in order that the promised blessing, which depends on faith in Jesus Christ, may be given to those who believe.

But now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor-slave.

You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus;

In Him the distinctions between Jew and Gentile, slave and free man, male and female, disappear; you are all one in Christ Jesus.

And if you belong to Christ, then you are indeed true descendants of Abraham, and are heirs in fulfilment of the promise.

And because you are sons, God has sent out the Spirit of His Son to enter your hearts and cry "Abba! our Father!"

Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir also through God's own act.

Now, however, having come to know God--or rather to be known by Him--how is it you are again turning back to weak and worthless rudimentary notions to which you are once more willing to be enslaved?

But you, brethren, like Isaac, are children born in fulfilment of a promise.

Therefore, brethren, since we are not the children of a slave-girl, but of the free woman--

Christ has become nothing to any of you who are seeking acceptance with God through the Law: you have fallen away from grace.

Would to God that those who are unsettling your faith would even mutilate themselves.

For the entire Law has been obeyed when you have kept the single precept, which says, "You are to love your fellow man equally with yourself."

But if you are perpetually snarling and snapping at one another, beware lest you are destroyed by one another.

For the cravings of the lower nature are opposed to those of the Spirit, and the cravings of the Spirit are opposed to those of the lower nature; because these are antagonistic to each other, so that you cannot do everything to which you are inclined.

But if the Spirit is leading you, you are not subject to Law.

hard drinking, riotous feasting, and the like. And as to these I forewarn you, as I have already forewarned you, that those who are guilty of such things will have no share in the Kingdom of God.

If we are living by the Spirit's power, let our conduct also be governed by the Spirit's power.

Brethren, if anybody be detected in any misconduct, you who are spiritual should restore such a one in a spirit of meekness. And let each of you keep watch over himself, lest he also fall into temptation.

Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God: To God's people who are in Ephesus--believers in Christ Jesus.

for the government of the world when the times are ripe for it--the purpose which He has cherished in His own mind of restoring the whole creation to find its one Head in Christ; yes, things in Heaven and things on earth, to find their one Head in Him.

which were once habitual to you while you walked in the ways of this world and obeyed the Prince of the powers of the air, the spirits that are now at work in the hearts of the sons of disobedience--to you God has given Life.

For we are God's own handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works which He has pre-destined us to practise.

At that time you were living apart from Christ, estranged from the Commonwealth of Israel, with no share by birth in the Covenants which are based on the Promises, and you had no hope and no God, in all the world.

You are therefore no longer mere foreigners or persons excluded from civil rights. On the contrary you share citizenship with God's people and are members of His family.

You are a building which has been reared on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, the cornerstone being Christ Jesus Himself,

in whom you also are being built up together to become a fixed abode for God through the Spirit.

I mean the truth that the Gentiles are joint heirs with us Jews, and that they form one body with us, and have the same interest as we have in the promise which has been made good in Christ Jesus through the Good News,

But these are not the lessons which you have learned from Christ;

For this reason, laying aside falsehood, every one of you should speak the truth to his fellow man; for we are, as it were, parts of one another.

Avoid shameful and foolish talk and low jesting--they are all alike discreditable--and in place of these give thanks.

There was a time when you were nothing but darkness. Now, as Christians, you are Light itself.

for the things which are done by these people in secret it is disgraceful even to speak of.

Buy up your opportunities, for these are evil times.

because we are, as it were, parts of His Body.

Let it not be in acts of eye-service as if you had but to please men, but as Christ's bondservants who are doing God's will from the heart.

And you masters, act towards your slaves on the same principles, and refrain from threats. For you know that in Heaven there is One who is your Master as well as theirs, and that merely earthly distinctions there are none with Him.

Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Christ Jesus: To all God's people in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the ministers of the Church and their assistants.

And I am justified in having this confidence about you all, because, both during my imprisonment and when I stand up in defence of the Good News or to confirm its truth, I have you in my heart, sharers as you all are in the same grace as myself.

Some indeed actually preach Christ out of envy and contentiousness but there are also others who do it from good will.

while the others proclaim Him from motives of rivalry, and insincerely, supposing that by this they are embittering my imprisonment.

Only let the lives you live be worthy of the Good News of the Christ, in order that, whether I come and see you or, being absent, only hear of you, I may know that you are standing fast in one spirit and with one mind, fighting shoulder to shoulder for the faith of the Good News.

so that you may always prove yourselves to be blameless and spotless--irreproachable children of God in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you are seen as heavenly lights in the world,

In conclusion, my brethren, be joyful in the Lord. For me to give you the same warnings as before is not irksome to me, while so far as you are concerned it is a safe precaution.

For we are the true circumcision--we who render to God a spiritual worship and make our boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in outward ceremonies:

Therefore let all of us who are mature believers cherish these thoughts; and if in any respect you think differently, that also God will make clear to you.

For there are many whom I have often described to you, and I now even with tears describe them, as being enemies to the Cross of Christ.

Their end is destruction, their bellies are their God, their glory is in their shame, and their minds are devoted to earthly things.

We, however, are free citizens of Heaven, and we are waiting with longing expectation for the coming from Heaven of a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ,

Yes, and I beg you also, my faithful yoke-fellow, to help these women who have shared my toil in connection with the Good News, together with Clement and the rest of my fellow labourers, whose names are recorded in the Book of Life.

I have enough of everything--and more than enough. My wants are fully satisfied now that I have received from the hands of Epaphroditus the generous gifts which you sent me--they are a fragrant odor, an acceptable sacrifice, truly pleasing to God.

My Christian greetings to every one of God's people. The brethren who are with me send their greetings.

To the people of God and the believing brethren at Colossae who are in Christ. May grace and peace be granted to you from God our Father.

if, indeed, you are still firmly holding to faith as your foundation, without ever shifting from your hope that rests on the Good News that you have heard, which has been proclaimed in the whole creation under Heaven, and in which I Paul have been appointed to serve.

In Him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are stored up, hidden from view.

For it is in Christ that the fulness of God's nature dwells embodied, and in Him you are made complete,

referring to things which are all intended to be used up and perish--in obedience to mere human injunctions and teachings?

If however you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, enthroned at God's right hand.

Give your minds to the things that are above, not to the things that are on the earth.

Whatever you are doing, let your hearts be in your work, as a thing done for the Lord and not for men.

For you know that it is from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. Christ is the Master whose bondservants you are.

The man who perpetrates a wrong will find the wrong repaid to him; and with God there are no merely earthly distinctions.

And for this very purpose I send him to you that you may know how we are faring; and that he may cheer your hearts.

Jesus, called Justus, also sends greeting. These three are Hebrew converts. They alone among such have worked loyally with me for the Kingdom of God--they are men who have been a comfort to me.

knowing as we do, brethren, that you are beloved by God and that He has chosen you.

But as God tested and approved us before entrusting us with His Good News, so in what we say we are seeking not to please men but to please God, who tests and approves our motives.

For, as you are well aware, we have never used the language of flattery nor have we found pretexts for enriching ourselves--God is our witness;

You yourselves are witnesses--and God is witness--how holy and upright and blameless our dealings with you believers were.

For you, brethren, followed the example of the Churches of God in Christ Jesus which are in Judaea; seeing that you endured the same ill-treatment at the hands of your countrymen, as they did at the hands of the Jews.

Those Jewish persecutors killed both the Lord Jesus and the Prophets, and drove us out of their midst. They are displeasing to God, and are the enemies of all mankind;

Yes, you are our glory and our joy.