Galatians 3 NLT
1 Oh, foolish Galatians! Who has cast
an evil spell on you? For the meaning of Jesus Christ’s death was made as clear
to you as if you had seen a picture of his death on the cross.
2 Let me ask you this one question: Did
you receive the Holy Spirit by obeying the law of Moses? Of course not! You
received the Spirit because you believed the message you heard about Christ.
3 How foolish can you be? After
starting your new lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect
by your own human effort?
4 Have you experienced so much for
nothing? Surely it was not in vain, was it?
5 I ask you again, does God give you
the Holy Spirit and work miracles among you because you obey the law? Of course
not! It is because you believe the message you heard about Christ.
6 In the same way, “Abraham believed
God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.”
7The real children of Abraham, then, are
those who put their faith in God.
8 What’s more, the Scriptures looked
forward to this time when God would declare the Gentiles to be righteous
because of their faith. God proclaimed this good news to Abraham long ago when
he said, “All nations will be blessed through you.”
9 So all who put their faith in Christ
share the same blessing Abraham received because of his faith.
10 But those who depend on the law to
make them right with God are under his curse, for the Scriptures say, “Cursed
is everyone who does not observe and obey all the commands that are written in
God’s Book of the Law.”
11 So it is clear that no one can be
made right with God by trying to keep the law. For the Scriptures say, “It is
through faith that a righteous person has life.”
12 This way of faith is very different
from the way of law, which says, “It is through obeying the law that a person
has life.”
13 But Christ has rescued us from the
curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon
himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures,
“Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”
14 Through Christ Jesus, God has blessed
the Gentiles with the same blessing he promised to Abraham, so that we who are
believers might receive the promised Holy Spirit through faith.
15 Dear brothers and sisters, here’s an
example from everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or amend an
irrevocable agreement, so it is in this case.
16 God gave the promises to Abraham and
his child. And notice that the Scripture doesn’t say “to his children, ” as if
it meant many descendants. Rather, it says “to his child”—and that, of course,
means Christ.
17 This is what I am trying to say: The
agreement God made with Abraham could not be canceled 430 years later when
God gave the law to Moses. God would be breaking his promise.
18 For if the inheritance could be
received by keeping the law, then it would not be the result of accepting God’s
promise. But God graciously gave it to Abraham as a promise.
19 Why, then, was the law given? It was
given alongside the promise to show people their sins. But the law was designed
to last only until the coming of the child who was promised. God gave his law
through angels to Moses, who was the mediator between God and the people.
20 Now a mediator is helpful if more
than one party must reach an agreement. But God, who is one, did not use a
mediator when he gave his promise to Abraham.
21 Is there a conflict, then, between
God’s law and God’s promises? Absolutely not! If the law could give us new
life, we could be made right with God by obeying it.
22 But the Scriptures declare that we
are all prisoners of sin, so we receive God’s promise of freedom only by
believing in Jesus Christ.
23 Before the way of faith in Christ was
available to us, we were placed under guard by the law. We were kept in
protective custody, so to speak, until the way of faith was revealed.
24 Let me put it another way. The law
was our guardian until Christ came; it protected us until we could be made
right with God through faith.
25And now that the way of faith has come, we
no longer need the law as our guardian.
26 For you are all children of God
through faith in Christ Jesus.
27 And all who have been united with
Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes.
28 There is no longer Jew or Gentile,
slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.
29 And now that you
belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and
God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you.
Galatians 4 NLT
1 Think of it this way. If a father
dies and leaves an inheritance for his young children, those children are not
much better off than slaves until they grow up, even though they actually own
everything their father had.
2 They have to obey their guardians until
they reach whatever age their father set.
3 And that’s the way it was with us
before Christ came. We were like children; we were slaves to the basic
spiritual principles of this world.
4 But when the right time came, God
sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law.
5 God sent him to buy freedom for us
who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children.
6 And because we are his children, God
has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba,
Father.”
7 Now you are no longer a slave but
God’s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir.
8 Before you Gentiles knew God, you
were slaves to so-called gods that do not even exist.
9 So now that you know God (or should I
say, now that God knows you), why do you want to go back again and become
slaves once more to the weak and useless spiritual principles of this world?
10You are trying to earn favor with God by
observing certain days or months or seasons or years.
11 I fear for you. Perhaps all my hard
work with you was for nothing.
12 Dear brothers and sisters, I plead
with you to live as I do in freedom from these things, for I have become like
you Gentiles—free from those laws. You did not mistreat me when I first
preached to you.
13 Surely you remember that I was sick
when I first brought you the Good News.
14 But even though my condition tempted
you to reject me, you did not despise me or turn me away. No, you took me in
and cared for me as though I were an angel from God or even Christ Jesus
himself.
15 Where is that joyful and grateful
spirit you felt then? I am sure you would have taken out your own eyes and
given them to me if it had been possible.
16Have I now become your enemy because I am
telling you the truth?
17 Those false teachers are so eager to
win your favor, but their intentions are not good. They are trying to shut you
off from me so that you will pay attention only to them.
18 If someone is eager to do good things
for you, that’s all right; but let them do it all the time, not just when I’m
with you.
19 Oh, my dear children! I feel as if
I’m going through labor pains for you again, and they will continue until
Christ is fully developed in your lives.
20 I wish I were with you right now so I
could change my tone. But at this distance I don’t know how else to help you.
21 Tell me, you who want to live under
the law, do you know what the law actually says?
22 The Scriptures say that Abraham had
two sons, one from his slave wife and one from his freeborn wife.
23The son of the slave wife was born in a
human attempt to bring about the fulfillment of God’s promise. But the son of
the freeborn wife was born as God’s own fulfillment of his promise.
24 These two women serve as an
illustration of God’s two covenants. The first woman, Hagar, represents Mount
Sinai where people received the law that enslaved them.
25 And now Jerusalem is just like Mount
Sinai in Arabia, because she and her children live in slavery to the law.
26 But the other woman, Sarah,
represents the heavenly Jerusalem. She is the free woman, and she is our
mother.
27 As Isaiah said, “Rejoice,
O childless woman, you who have never given birth! Break into a joyful
shout, you who have never been in labor! For the desolate woman now has more
children than the woman who lives with her husband!”
28 And you, dear brothers and sisters,
are children of the promise, just like Isaac.
29 But you are now being persecuted by
those who want you to keep the law, just as Ishmael, the child born by human
effort, persecuted Isaac, the child born by the power of the Spirit.
30 But what do the Scriptures say about
that? “Get rid of the slave and her son, for the son of the slave woman will
not share the inheritance with the free woman’s son.”
31 So, dear brothers
and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman; we are children of the
free woman.
