3 O you Galatians, have you no sense at all? Who has fooled you? You knew, just as if you had seen him with your own eyes, that Jesus Christ was killed on a cross.

² Here is one thing I want to ask you. You received the Holy Spirit. Was that because you obeyed the law [given to the Jews by Moses]? No, it was because you heard God's word and believed it.

³ Have you no sense at all? You began living your new life by the power of the Spirit. And are you now trying to finish living it by your own power [to keep the law]?

⁴ So many things happened to you. Was it all for nothing? Surely it was not for nothing.

⁵ God gives you the Spirit. He does wonderful works among you. Does he do this because you obey the law? No, he does it because you heard the word of God and believed it.

⁶ So it was with Abraham. The holy writings say `He believed God, and that was why God called him a good man.'

⁷ You see then, the people who believe God are children of Abraham.

⁸ The holy writings say that he will put people right with himself if they believe him, even those who are not Jews. It was written down before God did it. The holy writings told the good news to Abraham ahead of time. It said, `God will make you a blessing to all nations and people.'

⁹ Abraham believed God and was blessed. And so those who believe God are blessed too, along with him.

¹⁰ A curse is on all people who are trying to become good by obeying the law. The holy writings say, `Everyone is cursed who does not always obey everything that is written in the book of the law and do it.'

¹¹ Now, you can see this. No man is called a good man by God because he obeys the law. The holy writings say, `Those who are right with God shall live by faith.'

¹² The law does not ask people to believe. It says, `He who obeys the laws will live because of them.'

¹³ Christ has saved us from the curse which the law put on us. He took the curse on himself. It should have been on us. The holy writings say, `A curse be on everyone who hangs on a tree!'

¹⁴ Christ Jesus did this so that those who are not Jews will have the blessing which Abraham had. He did this so that when we believe, we will receive the Spirit who was promised to us.

¹⁵ My brothers, it is the same as when a man makes a promise. He makes it good and strong. Then no one can break it or add anything to it.

¹⁶ God made his promises to Abraham and to his Son. The promise does not have the words, `and to his sons,' for that means many sons. But it says, `and to his Son,' and that Son is Christ.

¹⁷ Here is what I mean. The law was given [to Moses] four hundred and thirty years after God gave that promise to Abraham. But it cannot break the strong promise which God made. And the law cannot change God's promise.

¹⁸ Do we get what God has promised us by obeying the law? If we do, then we are not getting it by his promise. But God gave it to Abraham by his promise.

¹⁹ Why then was the law made? God gave it after he made the promise, because so many people were doing what was wrong. The law was to be in power only until the Son came, the one to whom the promise was made. The law was handed down by God's angels with the help of a middle man.

²⁰ To need the help of a middle man there must be more than one person making the agreement. But God is the only one who made the promise.

²¹ Is the law against the promises of God? No, it is not! If a law had been given that could give people life, then surely people would have become good people by the law.

²² But the holy writings say it is like this. The whole world is in prison, kept there by the wrong things they have done. This was done so that people who believe in Jesus Christ would have the blessing. This blessing was promised to those who believe.

²³ Before one came for us to believe in, the law held us in prison like slaves. We were kept there until the one to believe in should come.

²⁴ The law watched over us, as if we were children, until Christ came. Then God would put us right with himself through faith in Christ.

²⁵ But now that one has come for us to believe in, the law does not watch over us any longer.

²⁶ You are all God's children because you have believed in Christ Jesus.

²⁷ All of you who have been baptised into Christ have taken Christ as your own.

²⁸ There is no longer any difference between a Jew and one who is not a Jew; between a slave and a free man; between a man and a woman. When you are in the body of Christ Jesus, you are all alike.

²⁹ If you belong to Christ, you are Abraham's children. And if you are Abraham's children, you will receive the blessing that God has promised.

5 Christ has made us really free. So, stay free! Do not let yourselves be made slaves again.

² I, Paul, say to you again that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ is no help to you at all.

³ Again I say to every man who is circumcised, he must obey all the law.

⁴ Some of you are trying to obey the law, so that God will call you good. If you do this, you have been cut off from Christ. You have lost the blessing of God.

⁵ But we hope to be made right by believing in Christ. The Spirit helps us to do this.

⁶ So if a man belongs to Christ Jesus, it does not matter if he is circumcised or not. He must show by his love that he believes.

⁷ You were doing well. Who stopped you from doing what is right?

⁸ God calls you but he is not the one who made you change your minds.

⁹ Even a little yeast makes all the bread rise.

¹⁰ The Lord makes me sure that you will not think any other way. But the teacher who is troubling your minds will be punished. It does not matter who he is.

¹¹ My brothers, am I still telling people to be circumcised? If I am, why are people still troubling me? If it were true, the cross of Christ, which they do not like, has lost its power.

¹² These teachers are troubling your minds. How I wish they would cut themselves off!

¹³ You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not take that to mean that you can do as you please. But work for each other because you love each other.

¹⁴ This one law is the whole law: `Love your neighbour as you love yourself.'

¹⁵ But if you bite and chew each other, be careful, or you will be killed by each other.

¹⁶ So I say, let the Spirit tell you what you should do. Then you will not do the wrong things you yourselves want to do.

¹⁷ People want to do wrong things that the Spirit does not want them to do. And the Spirit wants people to do things they do not want to do. The Spirit and the wrong things you want to do are against each other, so that you do not do what you yourself want to do.

¹⁸ If you do what the Spirit wants you to do, then you will be free from the law.

¹⁹ It is easy to see the wrong things people want to do. Both married people and those who are not married commit adultery. People make themselves unclean because of their wrong use of sex. They do things they should be ashamed of doing.

²⁰ They worship idols. They use witch-power. They hate. They quarrel. They are jealous. They get angry. They want their own way. They do not agree together and they join different groups against each other.

²¹ They want what other people have. They even kill. They drink too much strong drink. They like to take part in loud drinking and dancing. They do other things like these. I have told you before and I tell you again. Those who do these things will not be in the kingdom of God. 22,

²² But these are the things which the Spirit wants you to show: love, joy, peace, patience, being kind, being good, being true, being gentle, and keeping the body under control. There is no law that says, `These things are wrong.'

²³ Those who belong to Christ Jesus have stopped doing the wrong things they want to do. They have stopped them just as if they were killed on a cross. And they have even stopped wanting to do them.

²⁴ The Spirit gives us life. And so we should do what the Spirit wants us to do.

²⁵ We must not be proud of ourselves. We must not make one another angry. We must not want what other people have.

6 My brothers, perhaps a man has done something wrong. If so, you who are strong in the Spirit must help him to do the right thing again. Help him in a gentle way. Take care yourself, that you are not tried and will want to do wrong.

² Help each other in your troubles. In that way you obey Christ's law.

³ A man who thinks that he is an important person when he is not, that man fools himself.

⁴ Let every man test his own work. Then he will be proud of his own work. He will not be proud because he thinks his own work is better than someone else's work.

⁵ Each man must carry his own load.

⁶ People are taught the word of God. They should give some of all the good things they have to those who teach them.

⁷ Do not be fooled about this. God cannot be fooled. A man gets what he plants.

⁸ The man who plants the wrong things he wants to do will get death, because of those wrong things. But the person who plants what the Spirit wants him to do will live for ever, because of the Spirit.

⁹ We must not get tired of doing good things. If we do not stop doing them, we will get something back when the right time comes.

¹⁰ So then, when we can, we should do good to all people. But most of all, we should do it to those who are in God's family.

¹¹ (See, I am writing this to you in big letters with my own hand.)

¹² Some people want to do things that can be seen. They try to force you to be circumcised. They want to hide from trouble which would come to them if they talk about the cross of Christ.

¹³ Even those who are circumcised do not obey the law. But they want you to be circumcised. Then they can be proud that they made you do it.

¹⁴ But I will not be proud of anything but of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of it, the things of the world have become dead to me, and I have become dead to the world.

¹⁵ It does not matter if a person is circumcised or not, but he must become a new person.

¹⁶ May all who live by this rule have peace. And may God bless them. They are the true people of Israel and they belong to God.

¹⁷ From now on, please do not trouble me. For I have marks on my body that show I belong to the Lord Jesus.

¹⁸ My brothers, may the kindness and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ bless your spirit. May he do it!