¹² Brothers and sisters, I beg you: become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You have done me no wrong.

Forgiveness for the Offender

⁵ But if anyone has caused grief, he has caused it not to me but to some extent—not to exaggerate it—to all of you.

⁴ He said to Jehoshaphat, “Will you go with me to battle at Ramoth-gilead?” Jehoshaphat replied to the king of Israel, “I am as you are; my people are your people; my horses are your horses.”^(A)

²⁰ To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to gain Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might gain those under the law. ²¹ To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not outside God’s law but am within Christ’s law) so that I might gain those outside the law.^{(A) 22} To the weak I became weak, so that I might gain the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. ²³ I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I might become a partner in it.

¹⁵ Only on this condition will we consent to you: that you will become as we are and every male among you be circumcised.

⁷ Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.^{(A) 8} More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ^(B)

¹⁴ May I never boast of anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which^[a] the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.^(A)

¹⁴ But when I saw that they were not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the gentiles to live like Jews?”^[a](A)

¹³ In return—I speak as to children—open wide your hearts also.^(A)

²¹ They have been told about you that you teach all the Jews living among the gentiles to forsake Moses and that you tell them not to circumcise their children or observe the customs.