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. ¹ 

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming ¹  a curse for us (because it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”) ² 

The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law ¹  or by believing what you heard? ² 

But if I build up again those things I once destroyed, ¹  I demonstrate that I am one who breaks God’s law. ² 

What I am saying is this: The law that came four hundred thirty years later does not cancel a covenant previously ratified by God, ¹  so as to invalidate the promise.

Why then was the law given? ¹  It was added ²  because of transgressions, ³  until the arrival of the descendant ⁴  to whom the promise had been made. It was administered ⁵  through angels by an intermediary. ⁶ 

But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. ¹ 

These things may be treated as an allegory, ¹  for these women represent two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai bearing children for slavery; this is Hagar.

Now an intermediary is not for one party alone, but God is one. ¹ 

Therefore, brothers and sisters, ¹  we are not children of the slave woman but of the free woman.

For through the Spirit, by faith, we wait expectantly for the hope of righteousness.

But when I saw that they were not behaving consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas ¹  in front of them all, “If you, although you are a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you try to force ²  the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

I ¹  was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my nation, ²  and was ³  extremely zealous for the traditions of my ancestors. ⁴ 

I beg you, brothers and sisters, ¹  become like me, because I have become like you. You have done me no wrong!

But just as at that time the one born by natural descent ¹  persecuted the one born according to the Spirit, ²  so it is now.

For freedom ¹  Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not be subject again to the yoke ²  of slavery.

Now this matter arose ¹  because of the false brothers with false pretenses ²  who slipped in unnoticed to spy on ³  our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, to make us slaves. ⁴