3:1 You 6 foolish Galatians! Who has cast a spell 7 on you? Before your eyes Jesus Christ was vividly portrayed 8 as crucified!
5:1 For freedom 9 Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not be subject again to the yoke 10 of slavery. 5:2 Listen! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you at all!
1 tn Grk “My children, for whom I am again undergoing birth pains until Christ is formed in you.” The relative clauses in English do not pick up the emotional force of Paul’s language here (note “tone of voice” in v. 20, indicating that he is passionately concerned for them); hence, the translation has been altered slightly to capture the connotative power of Paul’s plea.
2 tn Or “does Christ serve the interests of sin?”; or “is Christ an agent for sin?” See BDAG 230-31 s.v. διάκονος 2.
3 tn Or “I do not declare invalid,” “I do not nullify.”
4 tn Or “justification.”
5 tn Or “without cause,” “for no purpose.”
4 tn Grk “O” (an interjection used both in address and emotion). In context the following section is highly charged emotionally.
5 tn Or “deceived”; the verb βασκαίνω (baskainw) can be understood literally here in the sense of bewitching by black magic, but could also be understood figuratively to refer to an act of deception (see L&N 53.98 and 88.159).
6 tn Or “publicly placarded,” “set forth in a public proclamation” (BDAG 867 s.v. προγράφω 2).
5 tn Translating the dative as “For freedom” shows the purpose for Christ setting us free; however, it is also possible to take the phrase in the sense of means or instrument (“with [or by] freedom”), referring to the freedom mentioned in 4:31 and implied throughout the letter.
6 sn Here the yoke figuratively represents the burdensome nature of slavery.
6 tn Grk “having become”; the participle γενόμενος (genomenos) has been taken instrumentally.
7 sn A quotation from Deut 21:23. By figurative extension the Greek word translated tree (ζύλον, zulon) can also be used to refer to a cross (L&N 6.28), the Roman instrument of execution.
7 tn Grk “his seed,” a figurative extension of the meaning of σπέρμα (sperma) to refer to descendants (L&N 10.29).
8 tn Grk “It”; the referent (the scripture) has been specified in the translation for clarity. The understood subject of the verb λέγει (legei) could also be “He” (referring to God) as the one who spoke the promise to Abraham.
9 tn Grk “to seeds.” See the note on “descendant” earlier in this verse. Here the term is plural; the use of the singular in the OT text cited later in this verse is crucial to Paul’s argument.
10 tn See the note on “descendant” earlier in this verse.
8 tn Both the NA27/UBS4 Greek text and the NRSV place the phrase “I have been crucified with Christ” at the end of v. 19, but most English translations place these words at the beginning of v. 20.
9 tn Here δέ (de) has been translated as “So” to bring out the connection of the following clauses with the preceding ones. What Paul says here amounts to a result or inference drawn from his co-crucifixion with Christ and the fact that Christ now lives in him. In Greek this is a continuation of the preceding sentence, but the construction is too long and complex for contemporary English style, so a new sentence was started here in the translation.
10 tn Grk “flesh.”
11 tc A number of important witnesses (Ì46 B D* F G) have θεοῦ καὶ Χριστοῦ (qeou kai Cristou, “of God and Christ”) instead of υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ (Juiou tou qeou, “the Son of God”), found in the majority of