⁷ “Now, son of man, I am choosing you to be a watchman for the family of Israel. If you hear a message from my mouth, you must warn the people for me. ⁸ I might say to you, ‘These evil people will die.’ Then you must go warn them for me. If you don’t warn them and tell them to change their lives, those evil people will die because they sinned. But I will make you responsible for their deaths. ⁹ But if you do warn the evil people to change their lives and stop sinning, and if they refuse to stop, they will die because they sinned. But you have saved your life.

God Does Not Want to Destroy People

¹⁰ “So, son of man, speak to the family of Israel for me. They might say, ‘We have sinned and broken the law. Our sins are too heavy to bear. We rot away because of them. What can we do to live?’

¹¹ “You must say to them, ‘The Lord God says: By my life, I swear that I don’t enjoy seeing people die—not even evil people! I don’t want them to die. I want them to come back to me. I want them to change their lives so that they can really live. So come back to me! Stop doing bad things! Why must you die, family of Israel?’

¹⁴ They were not following the truth of the Good News. When I saw this, I spoke to Peter in front of everyone. I said, “Peter, you are a Jew, but you don’t live like one. You live like someone who is not a Jew. So why are you trying to force those who are not Jewish to live like Jews?”

¹⁵ We are Jews by birth. We were not born “sinners,” as we call those who are not Jews. ¹⁶ But we know that no one is made right with God by following the law. It is trusting in^[a] Jesus Christ that makes a person right with God. So we have put our faith in Christ Jesus, because we wanted to be made right with God. And we are right with him because we trusted in^[b] Christ—not because we followed the law. I can say this because no one can be made right with God by following the law.