1FROM PAUL,
AN APOSTLE, not by human appointment or human commission, but by commission from Jesus Christ and from God the Father who raised him from the dead.
2I and the group of friends now with me send greetings to the Christian congregations of Galatia.
3Grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, 4who sacrificed himself for our sins, to rescue us out of this present age of wickedness, as our God and Father willed: 5to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
6I am astonished to find you turning so quickly away from him who called you by grace, and following a different gospel. 7Not that it is in fact another gospel, only there are persons who unsettle your minds by trying to distort the gospel of Christ. 8But if anyone, if we ourselves or an angel from heaven, should preach a gospel at variance with the gospel we preached to you, he shall be held outcast. 9I now repeat what I have said before: if anyone preaches a gospel at variance with the gospel which you received, let him be outcast!
10Does my language now sound as if I were canvassing for men's support? Whose support do I want but God's alone? Do you think I am currying favour with men? If I still sought men's favour, I should be no servant of Christ.
11I must make it clear to you, my friends, that the gospel you heard me preach is no human invention. 12I did not take it over from any man; no man taught it me; I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
13You have heard what my manner of life was when I was still a practising Jew: how savagely I persecuted the church of God, and tried to destroy it; 14and how in the practice of our national religion I was outstripping many of my Jewish contemporaries in my boundless devotion to the traditions of my ancestors. 15But then in his good pleasure God, who had set me apart from birth and called me through his grace, chose 16to reveal his Son to me and through me, in order that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles. When that happened, without consulting any human being, 17without going up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before me, I went off at once to Arabia, and afterwards returned to Damascus.
18Three years later I did go up to Jerusalem to get to know Cephas. I stayed with him for a fortnight, 19without seeing any other of the apostles, except James the Lord's brother. 20What I write is plain truth; before God I am not lying.
21Next I went to the regions of Syria and Cilicia, 22and remained unknown by sight to Christ's congregations in Judaea. 23They only heard it said, 'Our former persecutor is preaching the good news of the faith which once he tried to destroy'; 24and they praised God for me.
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