³ And that’s the way it was with us before Christ came. We were like children; we were slaves to the basic spiritual principles^[a] of this world.

²⁰ You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the spiritual powers of this world. So why do you keep on following the rules of the world, such as,

⁸ Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers^[a] of this world, rather than from Christ.

⁹ So now that you know God (or should I say, now that God knows you), why do you want to go back again and become slaves once more to the weak and useless spiritual principles of this world?

⁴ Even that question came up only because of some so-called believers there—false ones, really^[a]—who were secretly brought in. They sneaked in to spy on us and take away the freedom we have in Christ Jesus. They wanted to enslave us and force us to follow their Jewish regulations.

¹⁰ So why are you now challenging God by burdening the Gentile believers^[a] with a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors were able to bear?

³¹ So, dear brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman; we are children of the free woman.

Freedom in Christ

5 So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.

¹⁶ Jesus became a priest, not by meeting the physical requirement of belonging to the tribe of Levi, but by the power of a life that cannot be destroyed.

²⁵ And now Jerusalem is just like Mount Sinai in Arabia,^[a] because she and her children live in slavery to the law.

God’s Children through Faith

²³ Before the way of faith in Christ was available to us, we were placed under guard by the law. We were kept in protective custody, so to speak, until the way of faith was revealed.

²⁴ Let me put it another way. The law was our guardian until Christ came; it protected us until we could be made right with God through faith. ²⁵ And now that the way of faith has come, we no longer need the law as our guardian.