6 Dear brothers, if a Christian is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help him back onto the right path, remembering that next time it might be one of you who is in the wrong. ² Share each other’s troubles and problems, and so obey our Lord’s command. ³ If anyone thinks he is too great to stoop to this, he is fooling himself. He is really a nobody.

⁴ Let everyone be sure that he is doing his very best, for then he will have the personal satisfaction of work well done and won’t need to compare himself with someone else. ⁵ Each of us must bear some faults and burdens of his own. For none of us is perfect!

⁶ Those who are taught the Word of God should help their teachers by paying them.

⁷ Don’t be misled; remember that you can’t ignore God and get away with it: a man will always reap just the kind of crop he sows! ⁸ If he sows to please his own wrong desires, he will be planting seeds of evil and he will surely reap a harvest of spiritual decay and death; but if he plants the good things of the Spirit, he will reap the everlasting life that the Holy Spirit gives him. ⁹ And let us not get tired of doing what is right, for after a while we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t get discouraged and give up. ¹⁰ That’s why whenever we can we should always be kind to everyone, and especially to our Christian brothers.

¹¹ I will write these closing words in my own handwriting. See how large I have to make the letters! ¹² Those teachers of yours who are trying to convince you to be circumcised are doing it for just one reason: so that they can be popular and avoid the persecution they would get if they admitted that the cross of Christ alone can save. ¹³ And even those teachers who submit to circumcision don’t try to keep the other Jewish laws; but they want you to be circumcised in order that they can boast that you are their disciples.

¹⁴ As for me, God forbid that I should boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in all the attractive things of the world was killed long ago, and the world’s interest in me is also long dead. ¹⁵ It doesn’t make any difference now whether we have been circumcised or not; what counts is whether we really have been changed into new and different people.

¹⁶ May God’s mercy and peace be upon all of you who live by this principle and upon those everywhere who are really God’s own.

¹⁷ From now on please don’t argue with me about these things, for I carry on my body the scars of the whippings and wounds from Jesus’ enemies that mark me as his slave.

¹⁸ Dear brothers, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

Sincerely, Paul