Brothers and sisters, ¹  I offer an example from everyday life: ²  When a covenant ³  has been ratified, ⁴  even though it is only a human contract, no one can set it aside or add anything to it.

Brothers and sisters, ¹  if a person ²  is discovered in some sin, ³  you who are spiritual ⁴  restore such a person in a spirit of gentleness. ⁵  Pay close attention ⁶  to yourselves, so that you are not tempted too.

Are you so foolish? Although you began ¹  with ²  the Spirit, are you now trying to finish ³  by human effort? ⁴ 

Just as Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, ¹ 

My children – I am again undergoing birth pains until Christ is formed in you! ¹ 

And I testify again to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey ¹  the whole law.

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

However, if you continually bite and devour one another, ¹  beware that you are not consumed ²  by one another.

But the fruit of the Spirit ¹  is love, ²  joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ³ 

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! ¹ 

Where then is your sense of happiness ¹  now? For I testify about you that if it were possible, you would have pulled out your eyes and given them to me!

For it is written: “Rejoice, O barren woman who does not bear children; ¹  break forth and shout, you who have no birth pains, because the children of the desolate woman are more numerous than those of the woman who has a husband.” ² 

Those who want to make a good showing in external matters ¹  are trying to force you to be circumcised. They do so ²  only to avoid being persecuted ³  for the cross of Christ.

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?”