Grace and peace to you ¹  from God the Father and our ²  Lord Jesus Christ,

I assure you ¹  that, before God, I am not lying about what I am writing to you! ² 

For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith. ¹ 

So you are no longer a slave but a son, and if you are ¹  a son, then you are also an heir through God. ² 

I do not set aside ¹  God’s grace, because if righteousness ²  could come through the law, then Christ died for nothing! ³ 

And all who will behave ¹  in accordance with this rule, peace and mercy be on them, and on the Israel of God. ² 

From Paul, ¹  an apostle (not from men, nor by human agency, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead)

For you have heard of my former way of life ¹  in Judaism, how I was savagely persecuting the church of God and trying to destroy it.

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 ¹  basic forces? ²  Do you want to be enslaved to them all over again? ³ 

and though my physical condition put you to the test, you did not despise or reject me. ¹  Instead, you welcomed me as though I were an angel of God, ²  as though I were Christ Jesus himself! ³ 

envying, ¹  murder, ²  drunkenness, carousing, ³  and similar things. I am warning you, as I had warned you before: Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God!

who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age according to the will of our God and Father,

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.

Is the law therefore opposed to the promises of God? ¹  Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that was able to give life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. ² 

I have been crucified with Christ, ¹  and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So ²  the life I now live in the body, ³  I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, ⁴  who loved me and gave himself for me.