Open English Translation GAL Chapter 2

2 It was fourteen years later that I made the uphill trek to Yerushalem (Jerusalem)[ref] with Barnabas, taking Titos along as well. 2 God had told me to go there, and I explained to the leaders there the good message that I’d been proclaiming to the non-Jews. I did it privately, to double-check that I wasn’t somehow just acting vainly. 3 But not even Titos, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he’s a Greek. 4 However, some false brothers were sneaked in to monitor the freedoms that we have in the messiah, Yeshua (Jesus; Grk. Yesus), and they wanted us to be enslaved to their traditions. 5 But we didn’t submit to them even for one hour, so that the truth of the good message could continue amongst you.

6 And those people who were supposed leaders (although what they were didn’t mean much to me, because God doesn’t go by appearances)[ref] didn’t really contribute anything useful, as far as I could tell. 7 Instead, they saw that I’ve been entrusted with taking the good message to the non-Jews, just like Kefa (Peter; Grk. Petros) was entrusted to take it to the Yehudim (Jews), 8 because the same God who worked in Kefa to assign him to the Yehudim also worked in me to assign me to the non-Jews. 9 So, seeing the grace that God had shown towards me, Ya’akov (James; Grk. Yakobos) and Kefa and Yohan (John; Grk. Yoannes), the apparent pillars of the assemblies, accepted me and Barnabas as equals, so that we could go to the non-Jews and them to the Yehudim. 10 Also, they said that we need to keep helping the poor, but I was eager to do that anyway.

11 But when Kefa (Peter; Grk. Petros) came to Antiokeia, I had to oppose him to his face, because he’d messed up. 12 He’d been eating with non-Jews, but when Ya’akov (Jacob) and his companions arrived, he about-faced and started eating separately, because he was afraid of being criticised by the strict Yehudim (Jews). 13 The other Yehudim with him were also being hypocrites—so much so that even Barnabas joined their hypocrisy—14 but when I saw that they weren’t being honest with the truth of the good message, I had to say to Kefa in front of everybody, “If you Yehudim are living more like non-Jews, and not like strict Yehudim, how can you force non-Jews to obey all the Jewish traditions?”

15 We follow Jewish laws, not other nations’ customs, 16 but we know that we’re not saved by following rules,[ref] but only by faith in Yeshua (Jesus; Grk. Yesus) the messiah.[ref] So we’ve believed in Yeshua the messiah so that we can be made guiltless by our faith in the messiah, and not by obeying all those rules, because none of those rules can ever make any person guiltless. 17 However, if we attempt to be made guiltless through the messiah, yet find that we’re sinners, does that mean that the messiah is a servant to sin? That could never be so! 18 If I rebuild what I’ve already torn down, that would show me to be a law-breaker. 19 It was the law that showed me that I needed die to the idea of following the law, so that I could live to serve God instead. I was executed on a post along with the messiah,[ref] 20 and I’m not living any more, but it’s the messiah now living in me. The way that my body stays alive now is by living by faith in God’s son—the one who loved me and allowed himself to be executed for me. 21 I’m not rejecting God’s grace, because if the law could make me guiltless, that would mean that the messiah died unnecessarily.