3 Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision?

⁹ Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by regulations about food,^[a] which have not benefited those who observe them.^(A)

²⁵ Circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you are a transgressor of the law your circumcision has become uncircumcision.^{(A) 26} So, if the uncircumcised keep the requirements of the law, will not their uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? ²⁷ Then the physically uncircumcised person who keeps the law will judge you who, though having the written code and circumcision, are a transgressor of the law. ²⁸ For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision something external and physical.^{(B) 29} Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not the written code. Such a person receives praise not from humans but from God.^(C)

¹⁴ You have said, “It is vain to serve God. What do we profit by keeping his command or by going about as mourners before the Lord of hosts?^(A)

¹¹ The more words, the more vanity, so how is one the better?

⁸ For what advantage have the wise over fools? And what do the poor have who know how to conduct themselves before the living?^(A)

³² Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?”

³² If I fought with wild animals at Ephesus with a merely human perspective, what would I have gained by it? If the dead are not raised,