Galatians 4:11

4:11 I fear for you that my work for you may have been in vain.

Galatians 4:17

4:17 They court you eagerly, ¹  but for no good purpose; ²  they want to exclude you, so that you would seek them eagerly. ³ 

Galatians 5:8

5:8 This persuasion ⁴  does not come from the one who calls you!

Galatians 5:12

5:12 I wish those agitators ⁵  would go so far as to ⁶  castrate themselves! ⁷ 

Galatians 5:10

5:10 I am confident ⁸  in the Lord that you will accept no other view. ⁹  But the one who is confusing ¹⁰  you will pay the penalty, ¹¹  whoever he may be.

Galatians 4:18

4:18 However, it is good ¹²  to be sought eagerly ¹³  for a good purpose ¹⁴  at all times, and not only when I am present with you.

Galatians 5:7

5:7 You were running well; who prevented you from obeying ¹⁵  the truth?

Galatians 1:6

Occasion of the Letter

1:6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one ¹⁶  who called you by the grace of Christ ¹⁷  and are following ¹⁸  a different ¹⁹  gospel –

Galatians 1:9

1:9 As we have said before, and now I say again, if any one is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let him be condemned to hell! ²⁰ 

Galatians 2:5

2:5 But ²¹  we did not surrender to them ²²  even for a moment, ²³  in order that the truth of the gospel would remain with you. ²⁴ 

Galatians 3:1

Justification by Law or by Faith?

3:1 You ²⁵  foolish Galatians! Who has cast a spell ²⁶  on you? Before your eyes Jesus Christ was vividly portrayed ²⁷  as crucified!

Galatians 4:20

4:20 I wish I could be with you now and change my tone of voice, ²⁸  because I am perplexed about you.

Galatians 5:2

5:2 Listen! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you at all!

Galatians 1:7

1:7 not that there really is another gospel, ²⁹  but ³⁰  there are some who are disturbing you and wanting ³¹  to distort the gospel of Christ.

Galatians 6:12-13

6:12 Those who want to make a good showing in external matters ³²  are trying to force you to be circumcised. They do so ³³  only to avoid being persecuted ³⁴  for the cross of Christ. 6:13 For those who are circumcised do not obey the law themselves, but they want you to be circumcised so that they can boast about your flesh. ³⁵ 

[4:17]  ¹ tn Or “They are zealous for you.”

[4:17]  ² tn Or “but not commendably” (BDAG 505 s.v. καλῶς 2).

[4:17]  ³ tn Or “so that you would be zealous.”

[5:8]  ¹ tn Grk “The persuasion,” referring to their being led away from the truth (v. 7). There is a play on words here that is not easily reproducible in the English translation: The words translated “obey” (πείθεσθαι, peiqesqai) in v. 7 and “persuasion” (πεισμονή, peismonh) in v. 8 come from the same root in Greek.

[5:12]  ¹ tn Grk “the ones who are upsetting you.” The same verb is used in Acts 21:38 to refer to a person who incited a revolt. Paul could be alluding indirectly to the fact that his opponents are inciting the Galatians to rebel against his teaching with regard to circumcision and the law.

[5:12]  ² tn Grk “would even.”

[5:12]  ³ tn Or “make eunuchs of themselves”; Grk “cut themselves off.” This statement is rhetorical hyperbole on Paul’s part. It does strongly suggest, however, that Paul’s adversaries in this case (“those agitators”) were men. Some interpreters (notably Erasmus and the Reformers) have attempted to soften the meaning to a figurative “separate themselves” (meaning the opponents would withdraw from fellowship) but such an understanding dramatically weakens the rhetorical force of Paul’s argument. Although it has been argued that such an act of emasculation would be unthinkable for Paul, it must be noted that Paul’s statement is one of biting sarcasm, obviously not meant to be taken literally. See further G. Stählin, TDNT 3:853-55.

[5:10]  ¹ tn The verb translated “I am confident” (πέποιθα, pepoiqa) comes from the same root in Greek as the words translated “obey” (πείθεσθαι, peiqesqai) in v. 7 and “persuasion” (πεισμονή, peismonh) in v. 8.

[5:10]  ² tn Grk “that you will think nothing otherwise.”

[5:10]  ³ tn Or “is stirring you up”; Grk “is troubling you.” In context Paul is referring to the confusion and turmoil caused by those who insist that Gentile converts to Christianity must observe the Mosaic law.

[5:10]  ⁴ tn Or “will suffer condemnation” (L&N 90.80); Grk “will bear his judgment.” The translation “must pay the penalty” is given as an explanatory gloss on the phrase by BDAG 171 s.v. βαστάζω 2.b.β.

[4:18]  ¹ tn Or “commendable.”

[4:18]  ² tn Or “to be zealous.”

[4:18]  ³ tn Grk “But it is always good to be zealous in good.”

[5:7]  ¹ tn Or “following.” BDAG 792 s.v. πείθω 3.b states, “obey, follow w. dat. of the pers. or thing…Gal 3:1 v.l.; 5:7.”

[1:6]  ¹ sn The one who called you is a reference to God the Father (note the mention of Christ in the following prepositional phrase and the mention of God the Father in 1:1).

[1:6]  ² tc Although the majority of witnesses, including some of the most important ones (Ì⁵¹ א A B F^c Ψ 33 1739 1881 Ï f vg sy^p bo), read “by the grace of Christ” (χάριτι Χριστοῦ, cariti Cristou) here, this reading is not without variables. Besides alternate readings such as χάριτι ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ (cariti Ihsou Cristou, “by the grace of Jesus Christ”; D 326 1241^s pc sy^h**) and χάριτι θεοῦ (cariti qeou, “by the grace of God”; 327 pc Thret^lem), a few mss (Ì^46vid F* G H^vid ar b Tert Cyp Ambst Pel) have simply χάριτι with no modifier. Internally, the reading that seems best to explain the rise of the others is the shortest reading, χάριτι. Indeed, the fact that three different adjuncts are found in the mss seems to be a natural expansion on the simple “grace.” At the same time, the witnesses for the shortest reading are not particularly impressive, being that they largely represent one textual strand (Western), and a less-than-reliable one at that. Further, nowhere else in the corpus Paulinum do we see the construction χάρις (cari", “grace”) followed by Χριστοῦ without some other name (such as κυρίου [kuriou, “Lord”] or ᾿Ιησοῦ). The construction χάρις θεοῦ is likewise frequent in Paul. Thus, upon closer inspection it seems that the original wording here was χάριτι Χριστοῦ (for it is difficult to explain how this particular reading could have arisen from the simple χάριτι, in light of Paul’s normal idioms), with the other readings intentionally or accidentally arising from it.

[1:6]  ³ tn Grk “deserting [turning away] to” a different gospel, implying the idea of “following.”

[1:6]  ⁴ tn Grk “another.”

[1:9]  ¹ tn See the note on this phrase in the previous verse.

[2:5]  ¹ tn Grk “slaves, nor did we…” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, οὐδέ (oude) was translated as “But…even” and a new sentence started in the translation at the beginning of v. 5.

[2:5]  ² tn Or “we did not cave in to their demands.”

[2:5]  ³ tn Grk “even for an hour” (an idiom for a very short period of time).

[2:5]  ⁴ sn In order that the truth of the gospel would remain with you. Paul evidently viewed the demands of the so-called “false brothers” as a departure from the truth contained in the gospel he preached. This was a very serious charge (see Gal 1:8).

[3:1]  ¹ tn Grk “O” (an interjection used both in address and emotion). In context the following section is highly charged emotionally.

[3:1]  ² 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).

[3:1]  ³ tn Or “publicly placarded,” “set forth in a public proclamation” (BDAG 867 s.v. προγράφω 2).

[4:20]  ¹ tn Grk “voice” or “tone.” The contemporary English expression “tone of voice” is a good approximation to the meaning here.

[1:7]  ¹ tn Grk “which is not another,” but this could be misunderstood to mean “which is not really different.” In fact, as Paul goes on to make clear, there is no other gospel than the one he preaches.

[1:7]  ² tn Grk “except.”

[1:7]  ³ tn Or “trying.”

[6:12]  ¹ tn Grk “in the flesh.” L&N 88.236 translates the phrase “those who force you to be circumcised are those who wish to make a good showing in external matters.”

[6:12]  ² tn Grk “to be circumcised, only.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started with the words “They do so,” which were supplied to make a complete English sentence.

[6:12]  ³ tc ‡ Grk “so that they will not be persecuted.” The indicative after ἵνα μή (Jina mh) is unusual (though not unexampled elsewhere in the NT), making it the harder reading. The evidence is fairly evenly split between the indicative διώκονται (diwkontai; Ì⁴⁶ A C F G K L P 0278 6 81 104 326 629 1175 1505 pm) and the subjunctive διώκωνται (diwkwntai; א B D Ψ 33 365 1739 pm), with a slight preference for the subjunctive. However, since scribes would tend to change the indicative to a subjunctive due to syntactical requirements, the internal evidence is decidedly on the side of the indicative, suggesting that it is original.

[6:13]  ¹ tn Or “boast about you in external matters,” “in the outward rite” (cf. v. 12).