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Paul Reproves the Galatians

Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods.(A)

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not with lustful passion, like the gentiles who do not know God;

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Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “no idol in the world really exists” and that “there is no God but one.”(A)

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in a fiery flame, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.(A)

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One in Christ

11 So then, remember that at one time you gentiles by birth,[a] called “the uncircumcision” by those who are called “the circumcision”—a circumcision made in the flesh by human hands(A) 12 remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.(B)

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Footnotes

  1. 2.11 Gk in the flesh

You have already spent enough time in doing what the gentiles like to do, living in debauchery, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry.(A)

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For they report about us what kind of welcome we had among you and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God(A)

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19 What do I imply, then? That food sacrificed to idols is anything or that an idol is anything? 20 No, I imply that what they[a] sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons.(A)

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Footnotes

  1. 10.20 Other ancient authorities read the gentiles

21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of the proclamation, to save those who believe.(A)

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19 and have hurled their gods into the fire, though they were no gods but the work of human hands—wood and stone—and so they were destroyed.(A)

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Have you not driven out the priests of the Lord, the descendants of Aaron, and the Levites and made priests for yourselves like the peoples of other lands? Whoever comes to be consecrated with a young bull or seven rams becomes a priest of what are no gods.(A)

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18 they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance and hardness of heart.(A)

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You know that when you were gentiles you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak.(A)

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25 Pour out your wrath on the nations that do not know you
    and on the peoples that do not call on your name,
for they have devoured Jacob;
    they have devoured him and consumed him
    and have laid waste his habitation.(A)

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For the customs of the peoples are false:
a tree from the forest is cut down
    and worked with an ax by the hands of an artisan;(A)
they deck it with silver and gold;
    they fasten it with hammers and nails
    so that it cannot move.(B)
Their idols[a] are like scarecrows in a cucumber field,
    and they cannot speak;
they have to be carried,
    for they cannot walk.
Do not be afraid of them,
    for they cannot do evil,
    nor is it in them to do good.(C)

There is none like you, O Lord;
    you are great, and your name is great in might.(D)
Who would not fear you, O King of the nations?
    For that is your due;
among all the wise ones of the nations
    and in all their kingdoms
    there is no one like you.(E)
They are both stupid and foolish;
    the instruction given by idols
    is no better than wood![b](F)
Beaten silver is brought from Tarshish
    and gold from Uphaz.
They are the work of the artisan and of the hands of the goldsmith;
    their clothing is blue and purple;
    they are all the product of skilled workers.(G)
10 But the Lord is the true God;
    he is the living God and the everlasting King.
At his wrath the earth quakes,
    and the nations cannot endure his indignation.[c](H)

11 Thus shall you say to them: The gods who did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under the heavens.[d](I)

12 It is he who made the earth by his power,
    who established the world by his wisdom
    and by his understanding stretched out the heavens.(J)
13 When he utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens,
    and he makes the mist rise from the ends of the earth.
He makes lightning for the rain
    and brings out the wind from his storehouses.(K)
14 Everyone is stupid and without knowledge;
    goldsmiths are all put to shame by their idols,
for their images are false,
    and there is no breath in them.(L)
15 They are worthless, a work of delusion;
    at the time of their punishment they shall perish.
16 The portion of Jacob is not like these,
    for he is the one who formed all things,
and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance;
    the Lord of hosts is his name.(M)

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Footnotes

  1. 10.5 Heb They
  2. 10.8 Q ms Gk lack 10.6–8
  3. 10.10 Q ms Gk lack 10.10
  4. 10.11 This verse is in Aramaic

The Absurdity of Idol Worship

All who make idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit; their witnesses neither see nor know, and so they will be put to shame.(A) 10 Who would fashion a god or cast an image that can do no good?(B) 11 All its devotees shall be put to shame; the artisans, too, are merely human. Let them all assemble; let them stand up; they shall be terrified; they shall all be put to shame.(C)

12 The blacksmith works it with a tool over the coals, shaping it with hammers and forging it with his strong arm; he becomes hungry, and his strength fails; he drinks no water and is faint.(D) 13 The carpenter stretches a line, marks it out with a stylus, fashions it with planes, and marks it with a compass; he makes it in human form, with human beauty, to be set up in a shrine.(E) 14 He cuts down cedars or chooses a holm tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. 15 Then it can be used as fuel. Part of it he takes and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Then he makes a god and worships it, makes it a carved image and bows down before it.(F) 16 Half of it he burns in the fire; over this half he roasts meat, eats it,[a] and is satisfied. He also warms himself and says, “Ah, I am warm[b] by the fire!” 17 The rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, bows down to it and worships it; he prays to it and says, “Save me, for you are my god!”(G)

18 They do not know, nor do they comprehend, for their eyes are shut, so that they cannot see, and their minds as well, so that they cannot understand.(H) 19 No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, “Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and have eaten. Now shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?”(I) 20 He feeds on ashes; a deluded mind has led him astray, and he cannot save himself or say, “Is not this thing in my right hand a fraud?”(J)

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Footnotes

  1. 44.16 Cn Compare Gk Syr: Heb he eats, he roasts a roast
  2. 44.16 Q ms: MT I see

15 Now if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living, but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”(A)

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And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Long ago your ancestors—Terah and his sons Abraham and Nahor—lived beyond the Euphrates and served other gods.(A)

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But Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should listen to him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and I will not let Israel go.”(A)

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See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

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28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them over to an unfit mind and to do things that should not be done.(A)

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29 “Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals.(A) 30 While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent,(B)

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23 For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.

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12 Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes, because he was the chief speaker.

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10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him.(A)

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