갈라디아서 5

Stand firm in your freedom

¹Freedom was Christ’s purpose when he set us free. So stand firm, and do not let yourselves be held again under a yoke of slavery.

²Listen! I, Paul, am telling you: if you have yourselves circumcised, Christ will do you no good at all. ³I insist once more to every man who has himself circumcised: he puts himself under obligation to carry out the entire law. ⁴Any of you who look to the law to justify you have been cut off from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. ⁵But we, by the Spirit and on the ground of faith, are eagerly waiting for the righteousness we hope for.^{a 6}For in Christ Jesus, being circumcised or uncircumcised counts for nothing. What counts is faith at work through love.

Who blocked your way?

⁷You had been running a good race. Who got in your way and turned you from obeying the truth? ⁸That persuasion did not come from the one who calls you. ⁹A little yeast spreads through all the dough. ¹⁰In the Lord I am confident that you will not think otherwise. But the one who is unsettling you will bear God’s judgment, whoever that may be. ¹¹As for me, brothers and sisters, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the cross would have stopped being a stumbling block. ¹²As for those who are stirring you up, I wish they would go the whole way and castrate themselves!^b

Free to serve one another in love

¹³You were called to be free, brothers and sisters. Only do not let your freedom become an opening for the flesh. Instead, through love, be slaves to one another. ¹⁴The whole law comes to its fullness in one sentence: “You must love your neighbor as you love yourself.” ¹⁵But if you keep biting one another and tearing each other apart, be careful, or you will end up destroying one another.

Walk by the Spirit

¹⁶This is what I mean: walk by the Spirit, and you will never carry out what the flesh desires. ¹⁷For the flesh sets its desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. They are at war with each other, so that you are not free to do whatever you please.^{c 18}But if the Spirit is leading you, you are not under the law. ¹⁹The works of the flesh are plain to see: sexual immorality, impurity, indecency, ²⁰idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish rivalry, divisions, factions, ²¹envy, drunken bouts, wild partying, and other things like these. I am telling you now, as I told you before: people who live this way will not inherit the kingdom of God.

²²But the fruit the Spirit produces is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³gentleness and self-control. No law stands against things like these. ²⁴Those who belong to Christ have nailed the flesh to the cross, together with its passions and desires. ²⁵Since our life comes from the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit’s lead in each step we take. ²⁶We must not become people hungry for empty praise, who challenge one another and envy one another.