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

You who are trying to be declared righteous by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace!

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are following a different gospel –

Until certain people came from James, he had been eating with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he stopped doing this and separated himself because he was afraid of those who were pro-circumcision.

These things may be treated as an allegory, for these women represent two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai bearing children for slavery; this is Hagar.

But from those who were influential (whatever they were makes no difference to me; God shows no favoritism between people) – those influential leaders added nothing to my message.