Galatians 1-3

Easy-to-Read Version

1 Greetings from Paul, an apostle. I was chosen to be an apostle, but not by any group or person here on earth. My authority came from none other than Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Jesus from death. ² Greetings also from all those in God’s family who are with me.

To the churches in Galatia^[a]:

³ I pray that God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ will be good to you and give you peace. ⁴ Jesus gave himself for our sins to free us from this evil world we live in. This is what God our Father wanted. ⁵ The glory belongs to God forever and ever. Amen.

There Is Only One Good News Message

⁶ A short time ago God chose you to follow him. He chose you through his grace that came through Christ. But now I am amazed that you are already turning away and believing something different from the Good News we told you. ⁷ There is no other message that is the Good News, but some people are confusing you. They want to change the Good News about Christ. ⁸ We told you the true Good News message. So anyone who tells you a different message should be condemned—even if it’s one of us or even an angel from heaven! ⁹ I said this before. Now I say it again: You have already accepted the Good News. Anyone who tells you another way to be saved should be condemned!

¹⁰ Now do you think I am trying to make people accept me? No, God is the one I am trying to please. Am I trying to please people? If I wanted to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Paul’s Authority Is From God

¹¹ Brothers and sisters, I want you to know that the Good News message I told you was not made up by anyone. ¹² I did not get my message from any other human. The Good News is not something I learned from other people. Jesus Christ himself gave it to me. He showed me the Good News that I should tell people.

¹³ You have heard about my past life in the Jewish religion. I persecuted the church of God very much. I tried to destroy his people. ¹⁴ I was becoming a leader in the Jewish religion. I did better than most other Jews my own age. I tried harder than anyone else to follow the traditions we got from our ancestors.

¹⁵ But God had special plans for me even before I was born. So he chose me through his grace. ¹⁶ It pleased him to let me see and know his Son so that I could tell the Good News about him to the non-Jewish people. I immediately prepared to do this work without asking for advice or help from anyone. ¹⁷ I did not go to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was. But, without waiting, I went away to Arabia. Later, I went back to the city of Damascus.

¹⁸ Three years later I went to Jerusalem to meet Peter.^[b] I stayed with him 15 days. ¹⁹ I met no other apostles—only James, the brother of the Lord. ²⁰ God knows there is nothing untrue in any of this. ²¹ Later, I went to the areas of Syria and Cilicia.

²² No one in any of Christ’s churches in Judea had ever met me before. ²³ They had only heard this about me: “This man was persecuting us. But now he is telling people about the same faith that he once tried to destroy.” ²⁴ These believers praised God because of me.

The Other Apostles Accepted Paul

2 After 14 years I went back to Jerusalem with Barnabas and took Titus with me. ² I went there because God showed me that I should go. I explained to them the message that I tell the non-Jewish people. I also met alone with those who were considered to be the leaders. I wanted to be sure we were in agreement so that my past work and the work I do now would not be wasted.

³ Titus, who was with me, is a Greek. But these leaders still did not force him to be circumcised. ⁴ We needed to talk about these problems, because some who pretended to be our brothers had come into our group secretly. They came in like spies to find out about the freedom we have in Christ Jesus. They wanted to make us slaves, ⁵ but we did not agree with anything those false brothers wanted. We wanted the truth of the Good News to continue for you.

⁶ Those men who were considered to be important did not change the Good News message I tell people. (It doesn’t matter to me if they were “important” or not. To God everyone is the same.) ⁷ But these leaders saw that God had given me a special work, the same as Peter. God gave Peter the work of telling the Good News to the Jews. But God gave me the work of telling the Good News to the non-Jewish people. ⁸ God gave Peter the power to work as an apostle for the Jewish people. God gave me the power to work as an apostle too, but for those who are not Jews. ⁹ James, Peter, and John seemed to be the leaders. And they saw that God had given me this special gift of ministry, so they accepted Barnabas and me. They said to us, “We agree that you should go to those who are not Jews, and we will go to the Jews.” ¹⁰ They asked us to do only one thing—to remember to help those who are poor. And this was something that I really wanted to do.

Paul Shows That Peter Was Wrong

¹¹ When Peter came to Antioch, he did something that was not right. I stood against him, because he was wrong. ¹² This is what happened: When Peter first came to Antioch, he ate and associated with the non-Jewish people. But when some Jewish men came from James, Peter separated himself from the non-Jews. He stopped eating with them, because he was afraid of the Jews who believe that all non-Jewish people must be circumcised. ¹³ So Peter was a hypocrite. The other Jewish believers joined with him, so they were hypocrites too. Even Barnabas was influenced by what these Jewish believers did. ¹⁴ They were not following the truth of the Good News. When I saw this, I spoke to Peter in front of everyone. I said, “Peter, you are a Jew, but you don’t live like one. You live like someone who is not a Jew. So why are you trying to force those who are not Jewish to live like Jews?”

¹⁵ We are Jews by birth. We were not born “sinners,” as we call those who are not Jews. ¹⁶ But we know that no one is made right with God by following the law. It is trusting in^[c] Jesus Christ that makes a person right with God. So we have put our faith in Christ Jesus, because we wanted to be made right with God. And we are right with him because we trusted in^[d] Christ—not because we followed the law. I can say this because no one can be made right with God by following the law.

¹⁷ We Jews came to Christ to be made right with God, so it is clear that we were sinners too. Does this mean that Christ makes us sinners? Of course not. ¹⁸ But I would be wrong to begin teaching again those things that I gave up. ¹⁹ It was the law itself that caused me to end my life under the law. I died to the law so that I could live for God. I have been nailed to the cross with Christ. ²⁰ So I am not the one living now—it is Christ living in me. I still live in my body, but I live by faith in^[e] the Son of God. He is the one who loved me and gave himself to save me. ²¹ I am not the one destroying the meaning of God’s grace. If following the law is how people are made right with God, then Christ did not have to die.

God’s Blessing Comes Through Faith

3 You people in Galatia are so foolish! Why do I say this? Because I told you very clearly about the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. But now it seems as though you have let someone use their magical powers to make you forget. ² Tell me this one thing: How did you receive the Spirit? Did you receive the Spirit by following the law? No, you received the Spirit because you heard the message about Jesus and believed it. ³ You began your life in Christ with the Spirit. Now do you try to complete it by your own power? That is foolish. ⁴ You have experienced many things. Were all those experiences wasted? I hope they were not wasted! ⁵ Does God give you the Spirit because you follow the law? Does God work miracles among you because you follow the law? No, God gives you his Spirit and works miracles among you because you heard the message about Jesus and believed it.

⁶ The Scriptures say the same thing about Abraham. “Abraham believed God, and because of this faith he was accepted as one who is right with God.”^{[f] 7} So you should know that the true children of Abraham are those who have faith. ⁸ The Scriptures told what would happen in the future. These writings said that God would make the non-Jewish people right through their faith. God told this Good News to Abraham before it happened. God said to Abraham, “I will use you to bless all the people on earth.”^{[g] 9} Abraham believed this, and because he believed, he was blessed. All people who believe are blessed the same as Abraham was.

¹⁰ But people who depend on following the law to make them right are under a curse. As the Scriptures say, “They must do everything that is written in the law. If they do not always obey, they are under a curse.”^{[h] 11} So it is clear that no one can be made right with God by the law. The Scriptures say, “The one who is right with God by faith will live forever.”^[i]

¹² The law does not depend on faith. No, it says that the only way a person will find life by the law is to obey its commands.^{[j] 13} The law says we are under a curse for not always obeying it. But Christ took away that curse. He changed places with us and put himself under that curse. The Scriptures say, “Anyone who is hung on a tree^[k] is under a curse.”^{[l] 14} Because of what Jesus Christ did, the blessing God promised to Abraham was given to all people. Christ died so that by believing in him we could have the Spirit that God promised.

The Law and the Promise

¹⁵ Brothers and sisters, let me give you an example from everyday life: Think about an agreement that one person makes with another. After that agreement is made official, no one can stop it or add anything to it, and no one can ignore it. ¹⁶ God made promises to Abraham and his Descendant.^[m] The Scripture does not say, “and to your descendants.” That would mean many people. But it says, “and to your Descendant.” That means only one, and that one is Christ. ¹⁷ This is what I mean: The agreement that God gave to Abraham was made official long before the law came. The law came 430 years later. So the law could not take away the agreement and change God’s promise.

¹⁸ Can following the law give us the blessing God promised? If we could receive it by following the law, then it would not be God’s promise that brings it to us. But God freely gave his blessings to Abraham through the promise God made.

¹⁹ So what was the law for? The law was given to show the wrong things people do. The law would continue until the special Descendant of Abraham came. This is the Descendant mentioned in the promise, which came directly from God. But the law was given through angels, and the angels used Moses as a mediator to give the law to the people. ²⁰ But when God gave the promise, there was no mediator, because a mediator is not needed when there is only one side, and God is one.^[n]

The Purpose of the Law of Moses

²¹ Does this mean that the law works against God’s promises? Of course not. The law was never God’s way of giving new life to people. If it were, then we could be made right with God by following the law. ²² But this is not possible. The Scriptures put the whole world in prison under the control of sin, so that the only way for people to get what God promised would be through faith in^[o] Jesus Christ. It is given to those who believe in him.

²³ Before this faith came, the law held us as prisoners. We had no freedom until God showed us the way of faith that was coming. ²⁴ I mean the law was the guardian in charge of us until Christ came. After he came, we could be made right with God through faith. ²⁵ Now that the way of faith has come, we no longer need the law to be our guardian.

^26-27 You were all baptized into Christ, and so you were all clothed with Christ. This shows that you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. ²⁸ Now, in Christ, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Greek, a slave or free, male or female. You are all the same in Christ Jesus. ²⁹ You belong to Christ, so you are Abraham’s descendants. You get all of God’s blessings because of the promise that God made to Abraham.