Proverbs 1 NLT

1 These are the proverbs of Solomon, David’s son, king of Israel.

2 Their purpose is to teach people wisdom and discipline, to help them understand the insights of the wise.

3 Their purpose is to teach people to live disciplined and successful lives, to help them do what is right, just, and fair.

4 These proverbs will give insight to the simple, knowledge and discernment to the young.

5 Let the wise listen to these proverbs and become even wiser. Let those with understanding receive guidance

6 by exploring the meaning in these proverbs and parables, the words of the wise and their riddles.

7 Fear of the LORD is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.

8 My child, listen when your father corrects you. Don’t neglect your mother’s instruction.

9 What you learn from them will crown you with grace and be a chain of honor around your neck.

10 My child, if sinners entice you, turn your back on them!

11 They may say, “Come and join us. Let’s hide and kill someone! Just for fun, let’s ambush the innocent!

12 Let’s swallow them alive, like the grave ; let’s swallow them whole, like those who go down to the pit of death.

13 Think of the great things we’ll get! We’ll fill our houses with all the stuff we take.

14 Come, throw in your lot with us; we’ll all share the loot.”

15 My child, don’t go along with them! Stay far away from their paths.

16 They rush to commit evil deeds. They hurry to commit murder.

17 If a bird sees a trap being set, it knows to stay away.

18 But these people set an ambush for themselves; they are trying to get themselves killed.

19 Such is the fate of all who are greedy for money; it robs them of life.

20 Wisdom shouts in the streets. She cries out in the public square.

21 She calls to the crowds along the main street, to those gathered in front of the city gate:

22 “How long, you simpletons, will you insist on being simpleminded? How long will you mockers relish your mocking? How long will you fools hate knowledge?

23 Come and listen to my counsel. I’ll share my heart with you and make you wise.

24 “I called you so often, but you wouldn’t come. I reached out to you, but you paid no attention.

25 You ignored my advice and rejected the correction I offered.

26 So I will laugh when you are in trouble! I will mock you when disaster overtakes you—

27 when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster engulfs you like a cyclone, and anguish and distress overwhelm you.

28 “When they cry for help, I will not answer. Though they anxiously search for me, they will not find me.

29 For they hated knowledge and chose not to fear the LORD .

30 They rejected my advice and paid no attention when I corrected them.

31 Therefore, they must eat the bitter fruit of living their own way, choking on their own schemes.

32 For simpletons turn away from me—to death. Fools are destroyed by their own complacency.

33 But all who listen to me will live in peace, untroubled by fear of harm.”

Galatians 1 and 2 NLT

Outline

• Introduction (1:1-10)
  • Greetings (1:1-5)
  • Denunciation (1:6-10)
• Personal: Authentication of the Apostle of Liberty and Faith (1:11;2:21)
  • Paul's Gospel Was Received by Special Revelation (1:11-12)
  • Paul's Gospel Was Independent of the Jerusalem Apostles and the Judean Churches (1:13;2:21)
    1. Evidenced by his early activities as a Christian (1:13-17)
    2. Evidenced by his first post-Christian visit to Jerusalem (1:18-24)
    3. Evidenced by his second post-Christian visit to Jerusalem (2:1-10)
    4. Evidenced by his rebuke of Peter at Antioch (2:11-21)
• Doctrinal: Justification of the Doctrine of Liberty and Faith (chs. 3-4)
  • The Galatians' Experience of the Gospel (3:1-5)
  • The Experience of Abraham (3:6-9)
  • The Curse of the Law (3:10-14)
  • The Priority of the Promise (3:15-18)
  • The Purpose of the Law (3:19-25)
  • Sons, Not Slaves (3:26;4:7)
  • The Danger of Turning Back (4:8-11)
  • Appeal to Embrace the Freedom of God's Children (4:12-20)
  • God's Children Are Children of the Free Woman (4:21-31)
• Practical: Practice of the Life of Liberty and Faith (5:1;6:10)
  • Exhortation to Freedom (5:1-12)
  • Life by the Spirit, Not by the Flesh (5:13-26)
  • Call for Mutual Help (6:1-10)
• Conclusion and Benediction (6:11-18)

Galatians 1 NLT

1 This letter is from Paul, an apostle. I was not appointed by any group of people or any human authority, but by Jesus Christ himself and by God the Father, who raised Jesus from the dead. 

2 All the brothers and sisters here join me in sending this letter to the churches of Galatia. 

3 May God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.

4 Jesus gave his life for our sins, just as God our Father planned, in order to rescue us from this evil world in which we live. 

5 All glory to God forever and ever! Amen. 

6 I am shocked that you are turning away so soon from God, who called you to himself through the loving mercy of Christ. You are following a different way that pretends to be the Good News 

7 but is not the Good News at all. You are being fooled by those who deliberately twist the truth concerning Christ. 

8 Let God’s curse fall on anyone, including us or even an angel from heaven, who preaches a different kind of Good News than the one we preached to you. 

9 I say again what we have said before: If anyone preaches any other Good News than the one you welcomed, let that person be cursed. 

10 Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant. 

11 Dear brothers and sisters, I want you to understand that the gospel message I preach is not based on mere human reasoning. 

12 I received my message from no human source, and no one taught me. Instead, I received it by direct revelation from Jesus Christ.

13 You know what I was like when I followed the Jewish religion—how I violently persecuted God’s church. I did my best to destroy it. 

14 I was far ahead of my fellow Jews in my zeal for the traditions of my ancestors. 

15 But even before I was born, God chose me and called me by his marvelous grace. Then it pleased him 

16 to reveal his Son to me so that I would proclaim the Good News about Jesus to the Gentiles. When this happened, I did not rush out to consult with any human being. 

17 Nor did I go up to Jerusalem to consult with those who were apostles before I was. Instead, I went away into Arabia, and later I returned to the city of Damascus. 

18 Then three years later I went to Jerusalem to get to know Peter, and I stayed with him for fifteen days. 

19 The only other apostle I met at that time was James, the Lord’s brother. 

20 I declare before God that what I am writing to you is not a lie. 

21 After that visit I went north into the provinces of Syria and Cilicia. 

22 And still the churches in Christ that are in Judea didn’t know me personally. 

23 All they knew was that people were saying, “The one who used to persecute us is now preaching the very faith he tried to destroy!” 

24 And they praised God because of me.

Galatians 2 NLT

1 Then fourteen years later I went back to Jerusalem again, this time with Barnabas; and Titus came along, too. 

2 I went there because God revealed to me that I should go. While I was there I met privately with those considered to be leaders of the church and shared with them the message I had been preaching to the Gentiles. I wanted to make sure that we were in agreement, for fear that all my efforts had been wasted and I was running the race for nothing. 

3 And they supported me and did not even demand that my companion Titus be circumcised, though he was a Gentile. 

4 Even that question came up only because of some so-called believers there—false ones, really —who were secretly brought in. They sneaked in to spy on us and take away the freedom we have in Christ Jesus. They wanted to enslave us and force us to follow their Jewish regulations. 

5 But we refused to give in to them for a single moment. We wanted to preserve the truth of the gospel message for you. 

6 And the leaders of the church had nothing to add to what I was preaching. (By the way, their reputation as great leaders made no difference to me, for God has no favorites.) 

7 Instead, they saw that God had given me the responsibility of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as he had given Peter the responsibility of preaching to the Jews. 

8 For the same God who worked through Peter as the apostle to the Jews also worked through me as the apostle to the Gentiles. 

9 In fact, James, Peter, and John, who were known as pillars of the church, recognized the gift God had given me, and they accepted Barnabas and me as their co-workers. They encouraged us to keep preaching to the Gentiles, while they continued their work with the Jews. 

10 Their only suggestion was that we keep on helping the poor, which I have always been eager to do. 

11 But when Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him to his face, for what he did was very wrong. 

12 When he first arrived, he ate with the Gentile believers, who were not circumcised. But afterward, when some friends of James came, Peter wouldn’t eat with the Gentiles anymore. He was afraid of criticism from these people who insisted on the necessity of circumcision. 

13 As a result, other Jewish believers followed Peter’s hypocrisy, and even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. 

14When I saw that they were not following the truth of the gospel message, I said to Peter in front of all the others, “Since you, a Jew by birth, have discarded the Jewish laws and are living like a Gentile, why are you now trying to make these Gentiles follow the Jewish traditions? 

15 “You and I are Jews by birth, not ‘sinners’ like the Gentiles. 

16 Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.” 

17 But suppose we seek to be made right with God through faith in Christ and then we are found guilty because we have abandoned the law. Would that mean Christ has led us into sin? Absolutely not! 

18 Rather, I am a sinner if I rebuild the old system of law I already tore down.

19 For when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me. So I died to the law—I stopped trying to meet all its requirements—so that I might live for God. 

20 My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 

21 I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.