Circumcision of No Avail

^25 (A)For circumcision is indeed profitable if you keep the law; but if you are a breaker of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.

³ And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised ^(A)that he is ^[a]a debtor to keep the whole law. ^4 (B)You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; ^(C)you have fallen from grace. ⁵ For we through the Spirit eagerly ^(D)wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. ⁶ For ^(E)in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but ^(F)faith working through love.

¹⁵ For ^(A)in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation.

Israel Resists the Holy Spirit

⁵¹ “You ^(A)stiff-necked^[a] and ^(B)uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.

⁶ And ^(A)the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

²⁸ For ^(A)he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; ²⁹ but he is a Jew ^(B)who is one inwardly; and ^(C)circumcision is that of the heart, ^(D)in the Spirit, not in the letter; ^(E)whose ^[a]praise is not from men but from God.

God’s Judgment Defended

3 What advantage then has the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision? ² Much in every way! Chiefly because ^(F)to them were committed the ^[b]oracles of God.

²³ You who ^(A)make your boast in the law, do you dishonor God through breaking the law?

²⁵ “Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord, “that ^(A)I will punish all who are circumcised with the uncircumcised— ²⁶ Egypt, Judah, Edom, the people of Ammon, Moab, and all who are in the ^(B)farthest corners, who dwell in the wilderness. For all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are ^(C)uncircumcised in the heart.”