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UST GAL Chapter 5

5 The Messiah freed us believers from having to obey the laws God gave the Jews in order that we would not have to obey them. So continue to be steadfastly committed to the Lord. Do not let anyone force you to obey those laws again as if you were slaves to those laws. 2 I am Paul. Pay attention to what I am telling you! If you let anyone circumcise you, what the Messiah has done for you will not help you at all! 3 Once again I solemnly declare to every man who has someone circumcise him, that he must obey all of the laws God gave the Jews in order to be righteous. 4 You who are trying to make yourselves righteous by obeying the laws God gave the Jews have separated yourselves from the Messiah. God will no longer act kindly toward you. 5 This is so because we believers are confidently expecting by trusting in Jesus that God will make us righteous. The Holy Spirit enables us to do this. 6 This is so because when God has united us with the Messiah Jesus, whether people are circumcised or not is not important. Rather, only whether we trust in the Messiah is important. We show we trust in the Messiah by loving others.

7 You were spiritually progressing so well! You should never have let someone stop you from progressing, so that what is true does not convince you! 8 God is the one who calls you. He is not the one who is persuading you to think like this! 9 This false teaching might deceive all of you, just like a little yeast in some dough makes all of it swell up. 10 Because God has united us with the Lord Jesus, I am certain that you will believe only what I have told you. By contrast, God will certainly punish everyone who is confusing you about these things, whoever they are. 11 Fellow believers, as for me, were I to still declare that men must have someone circumcise them in order to be righteous, surely no one would still be persecuting me! This is because declaring that would abolish how offensive Jesus dying on the cross is. 12 O that those who are upsetting you would just castrate themselves!

13 Fellow believers, God has called you to free you from having to obey the laws God gave the Jews. But he did not free you from those laws so you could sin. Instead of sinning, serve each other by loving each other! 14 Do this because one command summarizes all the laws God gave the Jews. That command is, “Love each person as much as you love yourself.” 15 Now if you keep attacking and harming each other like wild animals, beware that you might completely destroy each other.

16 I am telling you to let the Holy Spirit lead you. If you do that, you will definitely not do what your sinful selves want to do. 17 This is because your sinful selves want to do what is contrary to what the Holy Spirit wants to do. Also, what the Holy Spirit wants to do is contrary to what your sinful selves want to do. This is because they are always against each other. The result is that you do not always do the good things that you truly want to do. 18 However, if the Holy Spirit leads you, the laws God gave the Jews do not control you.

19 You clearly know what people do because of their sinful selves. They do sexually immoral acts, impure acts, and unrestrained immoral acts. 20 They also worship false gods, do witchcraft, repeatedly act in hostile ways, quarrel with people, act jealously, behave angrily, act ambitiously, act divisively within a group of people, and make divisive groups of people. 21 They also envy others, get drunk, celebrate drunkenly, and do other sinful things like these. I warn you now about doing these sinful things, just like I warned you previously: anyone who regularly does these sinful things will not participate in God’s kingdom. 22 Yet the Holy Spirit enables us believers in the Messiah to love others and be joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, 23 gentle, and to control ourselves. There is no law that prohibits people from doing these good things. 24 We who belong to the Messiah Jesus have stopped doing what our sinful selves feel and want to do.

25 Since the Holy Spirit has made us spiritually alive, we must let the Holy Spirit lead us. 26 Do not boast. Do not make each other angry. Do not envy each other.

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