Formerly when you did not know God, you were enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods at all.

So they glorified God because of me.

But now that you have come to know God (or rather to be known by God), how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless basic forces? Do you want to be enslaved to them all over again?

Grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ,

I assure you that, before God, I am not lying about what I am writing to you!

For through the law I died to the law so that I may live to God.

Just as Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,

Now an intermediary is not for one party alone, but God is one.

For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith.

So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if you are a son, then you are also an heir through God.

I do not set aside God’s grace, because if righteousness could come through the law, then Christ died for nothing!

Now it is clear no one is justified before God by the law, because the righteous one will live by faith.

For if the inheritance is based on the law, it is no longer based on the promise, but God graciously gave it to Abraham through the promise.

Do not be deceived. God will not be made a fool. For a person will reap what he sows,

And all who will behave in accordance with this rule, peace and mercy be on them, and on the Israel of God.

From Paul, an apostle (not from men, nor by human agency, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead)

Am I now trying to gain the approval of people, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a slave of Christ!

For you have heard of my former way of life in Judaism, how I was savagely persecuting the church of God and trying to destroy it.

But when the one who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace was pleased

And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, proclaimed the gospel to Abraham ahead of time, saying, “All the nations will be blessed in you.”