Galatians 3:1-14

New Testament for Everyone

God’s promise and Abraham’s faith

3 You witless Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Messiah Jesus was portrayed on the cross before your very eyes! ² There’s just one thing I want to know from you. Did you receive the spirit by doing the works of Torah, or by hearing and believing? ³ You are so witless: you began with the spirit, and now you’re ending with the flesh? ⁴ Did you really suffer so much for nothing—if indeed it is going to be for nothing? ⁵ The one who gives you the spirit and performs powerful deeds among you—does he do this through your performance of Torah, or through hearing and believing?

⁶ It’s like Abraham. “He believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.” ⁷ So you know that it’s people of faith who are children of Abraham. ⁸ The Bible foresaw that God would justify the nations by faith, so it announced the gospel to Abraham in advance, when it declared that “the nations will be blessed in you.” ⁹ So you see: the people of faith are blessed along with faithful Abraham.

Redeemed from the law’s curse

¹⁰ Because, you see, those who belong to the “works-of-the-law” camp are under a curse! Yes, that’s what the Bible says: “Cursed is everyone who doesn’t stick fast by everything written in the book of the law, to perform it.” ¹¹ But, because nobody is justified before God in the law, it’s clear that “the righteous shall live by faith.” ¹² The law, however, is not by faith: rather, “the one who does them shall live in them.”

¹³ The Messiah redeemed us from the curse of the law, by becoming a curse on our behalf, as the Bible says: “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.” ¹⁴ This was so that the blessing of Abraham could flow through to the nations in Messiah Jesus—and so that we might receive the promise of the spirit, through faith.