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The Letter to the Galatians 1

1 I, Paul, write this letter to you. I remind you that God sent me to represent him. That is not because a group of people appointed me, nor because a human being sent me to be an apostle. Instead, I am an apostle because Jesus the Messiah and God the Father have appointed and sent me to be an apostle—yes, God the Father, who made the Messiah alive again after he died! 2 All the fellow believers who are here with me approve of this message that I am writing. I am sending this letter to the congregations that are in the province of Galatia. 3 May God our Father and our Lord Jesus the Messiah continue to be kind to you and make you peaceful.” 4 The Messiah offered himself as a sacrifice in order that he might remove the guilt for the sinful things we have done. He did that in order that he might enable us to not do the evil things that people who do not know him do. He did this because God, who is our Father, wanted it. 5 Because that is true, let us praise God forever and ever. May it be so!

6 I am very disappointed that so soon after you trusted in the Messiah you are turning away from God. God chose you to be in a relationship that is based on the kindness of the Messiah. I am also disappointed that so soon you are believing a different message which some say is “good news.” 7 Their message is not a true message. What is happening is that certain persons are confusing your minds. They are desiring to change the good news about the Messiah and are creating another message. 8 But even if we apostles or an angel from heaven would tell you a message that is different from the good news that we told you before, I appeal to God that he would punish such a person forever. 9 As we told you previously, so now I tell you this once more: Someone is telling you what he says is good news, but it is a message that is different from the good news that I gave you. So I appeal to God that he eternally condemn that person. 10 I said that because I do not desire that people approve me, contrary to what some people have said about me. It is God whom I desire to approve me. Specifically, I do not say and do things just to please people. If it were still people whom I was trying to please, then I would not be one who willingly and completely serves the Messiah.

11 My fellow believers, I want you to know that the message about the Messiah that I proclaim to people is not one that some person created. 12 I was not given this good news by a human being, and no human being taught it to me. Instead, it was God who revealed Jesus the Messiah to me.

13 People have told you how I used to behave when I practiced the Jewish religion. They told you that I continually did very harmful things to the groups of believers belonging to God, and they told you that I tried to get rid of those people. 14 I was practicing the Jewish religion more thoroughly than many other Jews who were my age were practicing it. I was also trying much more enthusiastically to get others to obey the traditions that my ancestors kept. 15 Nevertheless, before I was born God selected me for a special task and he kindly chose me. When God thought that it was good, 16 he showed me who his Son really is. He did this so that I would tell others the good news about his Son in regions where the non-Jews live. But I did not immediately go to any human beings in order to gain an understanding of that message. 17 I also did not immediately leave Damascus and go to Jerusalem for that purpose to those who were representatives of Jesus before I was. Rather, I went away into the region of Arabia, a desert area. Later I returned once more to the city of Damascus. 18 Then three years after God revealed this good news to me, I went up to the city of Jerusalem in order that I might meet Peter. But I remained with him for only fifteen days. 19 I also saw James, the brother and representative of our Lord Jesus, but I did not see any other representatives of Jesus. 20 God knows that what I am writing to you is completely true! 21 After I left Jerusalem, I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. 22 At that time people in the Christian congregations who were in the province of Judea still had not met me personally 23 They only heard others say about me repeatedly, “Paul, the one who in the past was doing harmful things to us, is now telling the same message which we believe and which formerly he was trying to cause people to stop believing!” 24 So they kept praising God because he had caused me to believe in Jesus and because I was now telling people the good news about him.

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