Galatians 1-3 (Contemporary English Version)

Galatians 1

 ^1-2From the apostle Paul and from all the Lord's followers with me.

   I was chosen to be an apostle by Jesus Christ and by God the Father, who raised him from death. No mere human chose or appointed me to this work.

   To the churches in Galatia.

    ³I pray that God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ will be kind to you and will bless you with peace! ⁴Christ obeyed God our Father and gave himself as a sacrifice for our sins to rescue us from this evil world. ⁵God will be given glory forever and ever. Amen.

   

The Only True Message

 ⁶I am shocked that you have so quickly turned from God, who chose you because of his wonderful kindness. ^[a] You have believed another message, ⁷when there is really only one true message. But some people are causing you trouble and want to make you turn away from the good news about Christ. ⁸I pray that God will punish anyone who preaches anything different from our message to you! It doesn't matter if that person is one of us or an angel from heaven. ⁹I have said it before, and I will say it again. I hope God will punish anyone who preaches anything different from what you have already believed. ¹⁰I am not trying to please people. I want to please God. Do you think I am trying to please people? If I were doing that, I would not be a servant of Christ.

   

How Paul Became an Apostle

 ¹¹My friends, I want you to know that no one made up the message I preach. ¹²It wasn't given or taught to me by some mere human. My message came directly from Jesus Christ when he appeared to me.

    ¹³You know how I used to live as a Jew. I was cruel to God's church and even tried to destroy it. ¹⁴I was a much better Jew than anyone else my own age, and I obeyed every law that our ancestors had given us. ¹⁵But even before I was born, God had chosen me. He was kind and had decided ¹⁶to show me his Son, so that I would announce his message to the Gentiles. I didn't talk this over with anyone. ¹⁷I didn't say a word, not even to the men in Jerusalem who were apostles before I was. Instead, I went at once to Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus.

    ¹⁸Three years later I went to visit Peter ^[b] in Jerusalem and stayed with him for fifteen days. ¹⁹The only other apostle I saw was James, the Lord's brother. ²⁰And in the presence of God I swear I am telling the truth. ²¹Later, I went to the regions of Syria and Cilicia. ²²But no one who belonged to Christ's churches in Judea had ever seen me in person. ²³They had only heard that the one who had been cruel to them was now preaching the message that he had once tried to destroy. ²⁴And because of me, they praised God.

   

Galatians 2

 ¹Fourteen years later I went to Jerusalem with Barnabas. I also took along Titus. ²But I went there because God had told me to go, and I explained the good news that I had been preaching to the Gentiles. Then I met privately with the ones who seemed to be the most important leaders. I wanted to make sure that my work in the past and my future work would not be for nothing.

    ³Titus went to Jerusalem with me. He was a Greek, but still he wasn't forced to be circumcised. ⁴We went there because of those who pretended to be followers and had sneaked in among us as spies. They had come to take away the freedom that Christ Jesus had given us, and they were trying to make us their slaves. ⁵But we wanted you to have the true message. That's why we didn't give in to them, not even for a second.

    ⁶Some of them were supposed to be important leaders, but I didn't care who they were. God doesn't have any favorites! None of these so-called special leaders added anything to my message. ⁷They realized that God had sent me with the good news for Gentiles, and that he had sent Peter with the same message for Jews. ⁸God, who had sent Peter on a mission to the Jews, was now using me to preach to the Gentiles.

    ⁹James, Peter, and John realized that God had given me the message about his undeserved kindness. And these men are supposed to be the backbone of the church. They even gave Barnabas and me a friendly handshake. This was to show that we would work with Gentiles and that they would work with Jews. ¹⁰They only asked us to remember the poor, and that was something I had always been eager to do.

   

Paul Corrects Peter at Antioch

 ¹¹When Peter came to Antioch, I told him face to face that he was wrong. ¹²He used to eat with Gentile followers of the Lord, until James sent some Jewish followers. Peter was afraid of the Jews and soon stopped eating with Gentiles. ¹³He and the other Jews hid their true feelings so well that even Barnabas was fooled. ¹⁴But when I saw that they were not really obeying the truth that is in the good news, I corrected Peter in front of everyone and said:

   Peter, you are a Jew, but you live like a Gentile. So how can you force Gentiles to live like Jews?

    ¹⁵We are Jews by birth and are not sinners like Gentiles. ¹⁶But we know that God accepts only those who have faith in Jesus Christ. No one can please God by simply obeying the Law. So we put our faith in Christ Jesus, and God accepted us because of our faith.

    ¹⁷When we Jews started looking for a way to please God, we discovered that we are sinners too. Does this mean that Christ is the one who makes us sinners? No, it doesn't! ¹⁸But if I tear down something and then build it again, I prove that I was wrong at first. ¹⁹It was the Law itself that killed me and freed me from its power, so that I could live for God.

   I have been nailed to the cross with Christ. ²⁰I have died, but Christ lives in me. And I now live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave his life for me. ²¹I don't turn my back on God's undeserved kindness. If we can be acceptable to God by obeying the Law, it was useless for Christ to die.

   

Galatians 3

Faith Is the Only Way

 ¹You stupid Galatians! I told you exactly how Jesus Christ was nailed to a cross. Has someone now put an evil spell on you? ²I want to know only one thing. How were you given God's Spirit? Was it by obeying the Law of Moses or by hearing about Christ and having faith in him? ³How can you be so stupid? Do you think that by yourself you can complete what God's Spirit started in you? ⁴Have you gone through all of this for nothing? Is it all really for nothing? ⁵God gives you his Spirit and works miracles in you. But does he do this because you obey the Law of Moses or because you have heard about Christ and have faith in him?

    ⁶The Scriptures say that God accepted Abraham because Abraham had faith. ⁷And so, you should understand that everyone who has faith is a child of Abraham. ^{[c] 8}Long ago the Scriptures said that God would accept the Gentiles because of their faith. That's why God told Abraham the good news that all nations would be blessed because of him. ⁹This means that everyone who has faith will share in the blessings that were given to Abraham because of his faith. ¹⁰Anyone who tries to please God by obeying the Law is under a curse. The Scriptures say, "Everyone who doesn't obey everything in the Law is under a curse." ¹¹No one can please God by obeying the Law. The Scriptures also say, "The people God accepts because of their faith will live." ^{[d] 12}The Law isn't based on faith. It promises life only to people who obey its commands. ¹³But Christ rescued us from the Law's curse, when he became a curse in our place. This is because the Scriptures say that anyone who is nailed to a tree is under a curse. ¹⁴And because of what Jesus Christ has done, the blessing that was promised to Abraham was taken to the Gentiles. This happened so that by faith we would be given the promised Holy Spirit.

   

The Law and the Promise

 ¹⁵My friends, I will use an everyday example to explain what I mean. Once someone agrees to something, no one else can change or cancel the agreement. ^{[e] 16}That is how it is with the promises God made to Abraham and his descendant. ^[f] The promises were not made to many descendants, but only to one, and that one is Christ. ¹⁷What I am saying is that the Law cannot change or cancel God's promise that was made 430 years before the Law was given. ¹⁸If we have to obey the Law in order to receive God's blessings, those blessings don't really come to us because of God's promise. But God was kind to Abraham and made him a promise. ¹⁹What is the use of the Law? It was given later to show that we sin. But it was only supposed to last until the coming of that descendant ^[g] who was given the promise. In fact, angels gave the Law to Moses, and he gave it to the people. ²⁰There is only one God, and the Law did not come directly from him.

Slaves and Children

 ²¹Does the Law disagree with God's promises? No, it doesn't! If any law could give life to us, we could become acceptable to God by obeying that law. ²²But the Scriptures say that sin controls everyone, so that God's promises will be for anyone who has faith in Jesus Christ.

    ²³The Law controlled us and kept us under its power until the time came when we would have faith. ²⁴In fact, the Law was our teacher. It was supposed to teach us until we had faith and were acceptable to God. ²⁵But once a person has learned to have faith, there is no more need to have the Law as a teacher.

    ²⁶All of you are God's children because of your faith in Christ Jesus. ²⁷And when you were baptized, it was as though you had put on Christ in the same way you put on new clothes. ²⁸Faith in Christ Jesus is what makes each of you equal with each other, whether you are a Jew or a Greek, a slave or a free person, a man or a woman. ²⁹So if you belong to Christ, you are now part of Abraham's family, ^[h] and you will be given what God has promised.