Ga-la-ti 2

The leaders in Jerusalem accept Paul

¹Then, fourteen years later, I went up to Jerusalem again, this time with Barnabas, and I took Titus along as well. ²I went up because God had shown me that I should. I set out before them the gospel I proclaim among the Gentiles, though I did this privately, with those who were regarded as leaders. I did not want to find that I was running, or had run, for nothing. ³Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. ⁴This came up because of false brothers who had been smuggled in. They slipped in to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus, so that they could make us slaves. ⁵We did not give in to them, not even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.^{a 6}As for those who were regarded as important (what they once were makes no difference to me, since God is not swayed by a person’s standing), those leaders added nothing to my message. ⁷On the contrary, they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been for the circumcised. ⁸For God, who was at work in Peter to make him an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me for the Gentiles. ⁹James, Cephas and John, who were regarded as pillars, recognized the grace that had been given to me, and they gave Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship. We agreed that we would go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. ¹⁰They asked only that we keep remembering the poor, and that is the very thing I was eager to do.

Paul opposes Cephas at Antioch

¹¹But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him face to face, because he was clearly in the wrong. ¹²Before some people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But once they had come, he started to pull back and hold himself apart, afraid of those who insisted on circumcision.^{b 13}The other Jewish believers joined in his hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was swept along by their pretense. ¹⁴But when I saw that they were not walking in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How then can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”^{c 15}We ourselves are Jews by birth, not Gentile sinners. ¹⁶Yet we know that no one is justified by works of the law; a person is justified only through faith in Jesus Christ. So we too have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because no human being will be justified by works of the law.^{d 17}But if, while we seek to be justified in Christ, we ourselves are found to be sinners too, does that make Christ a servant of sin? Certainly not! ¹⁸For if I rebuild what I tore down, I show that I am a lawbreaker. ¹⁹For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ.^{e 20}I am no longer the one who lives; Christ lives in me. Whatever life I still have in the flesh is a life lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and handed himself over for my sake.^{f 21}I do not cancel out God’s grace. For if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing at all.