and all the brothers who are with me. To: The churches in Galatia.

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of the Messiah and, instead, are following a different gospel,

not that another one really exists. To be sure, there are certain people who are troubling you and want to distort the gospel about the Messiah.

But the churches of the Messiah that are in Judea did not yet know me personally.

But when I saw that they were not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel, I told Cephas in front of everyone, "Though you are a Jew, you have been living like a gentile and not like a Jew. So how can you insist that the gentiles must live like Jews?"

We ourselves are Jews by birth, and not gentile sinners,

Are you so foolish? Having started out with the Spirit, are you now ending up with the flesh?

You see, then, that those who have faith are Abraham's real descendants.

Therefore, those who believe are blessed together with Abraham, the one who believed.

Certainly all who depend on the actions of the Law are under a curse. For it is written, "A curse on everyone who does not obey everything that is written in the Book of the Law!"

But now that faith has come about, we are no longer under a guardian.

For all of you are God's children through faith in the Messiah Jesus.

Because all of you are one in the Messiah Jesus, a person is no longer a Jew or a Greek, a slave or a free person, a male or a female.

And if you belong to the Messiah, then you are Abraham's descendants indeed, and heirs according to the promise.

Now because you are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts to cry out, "Abba! Father!"

So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if you are a child, then you are also an heir because of what God did.

However, in the past, when you did not know God, you were slaves to things that are not really gods at all.

You are observing days, months, seasons, and years.

These people who have been instructing you are devoted to you, but not in a good way. They want you to avoid me so that you will be devoted to them.

Tell me, those of you who want to live under the Law: Are you really listening to what the Law says?

This is being said as an allegory, for these women represent two covenants. The one woman, Hagar, is from Mount Sinai, and her children are born into slavery.

For it is written, "Rejoice, you childless woman, who cannot give birth to any children! Break into song and shout, you who feel no pains of childbirth! For the children of the deserted woman are more numerous than the children of the woman who has a husband."

So you, brothers, are children of the promise, like Isaac.

So then, brothers, we are not children of the slave woman but of the free woman.

Those of you who are trying to be justified by the Law have been cut off from the Messiah. You have fallen away from grace.

I wish that those who are upsetting you would castrate themselves!

But if you bite and devour one another, be careful that you are not destroyed by each other.

For what the flesh wants is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit wants is opposed to the flesh. They are opposed to each other, and so you do not do what you want to do.

But if you are being led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.

Now the actions of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, promiscuity,

Brothers, if a person is caught doing something wrong, those of you who are spiritual should restore that person gently. Watch out for yourself so that you are not tempted as well.

Look at how large these letters are because I am writing with my own hand!

These people who want to impress others by their external appearance are trying to force you to be circumcised, simply to avoid being persecuted for the cross of the Messiah.

Why, not even those who are circumcised obey the Law! They simply want you to be circumcised so that they can boast about your external appearance.