Galatians 5:22-25

5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit ¹  is love, ²  joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ³  5:23 gentleness, and ⁴  self-control. Against such things there is no law. 5:24 Now those who belong to Christ ⁵  have crucified the flesh ⁶  with its passions ⁷  and desires. 5:25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also behave in accordance with ⁸  the Spirit.

[5:22]  ¹ tn That is, the fruit the Spirit produces.

[5:22]  ² sn Another way to punctuate this is “love” followed by a colon (love: joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control). It is thus possible to read the eight characteristics following “love” as defining love.

[5:22]  ³ tn Or “reliability”; see BDAG 818 s.v. πίστις 1.a.

[5:23]  ⁴ tn “And” is supplied here as a matter of English style, which normally inserts “and” between the last two elements of a list or series.

[5:24]  ⁵ tc ‡ Some mss (א A B C P Ψ 0122¹ 0278 33 1175 1739 pc co) read “Christ Jesus” here, while many significant ones (Ì⁴⁶ D F G 0122*^,2 latt sy), as well as the Byzantine text, lack “Jesus.” The Byzantine text is especially not prone to omit the name “Jesus”; that it does so here argues for the authenticity of the shorter reading (for similar instances of probably authentic Byzantine shorter readings, see Matt 24:36 and Phil 1:14; cf. also W.-H. J. Wu, “A Systematic Analysis of the Shorter Readings in the Byzantine Text of the Synoptic Gospels” [Ph.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 2002]). On the strength of the alignment of Ì⁴⁶ with the Western and Byzantine texttypes, the shorter reading is preferred. NA²⁷ includes the word in brackets, indicating doubts as to its authenticity.

[5:24]  ⁶ tn See the note on the word “flesh” in Gal 5:13.

[5:24]  ⁷ tn The Greek term παθήμασιν (paqhmasin, translated “passions”) refers to strong physical desires, especially of a sexual nature (L&N 25.30).

[5:25]  ⁸ tn Or “let us also follow,” “let us also walk by.”