1Then, fourteen years later, I went up to Jerusalem again with Barnabas. I took Titus with me as well.
2I went up because God revealed to me that I should. I set before them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I did this privately, with those who were held in high regard, so that I might not be running, or have run, for nothing.
3But not even Titus, who was with me, was forced to be circumcised, though he is a Greek.
4This came up because of false brothers who had been brought in without our knowing. They slipped in to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus, so that they could make us slaves.
5We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might stay with you.
6As for those who seemed to be important (what they were makes no difference to me; God does not judge by a person's standing), those men added nothing to me when we talked.
7Just the opposite: they saw that I had been trusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been trusted with the gospel for the circumcised.
8(For God, who worked powerfully in Peter to make him an apostle to the circumcised, worked powerfully in me also for the Gentiles.)
9James, Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, saw the grace that had been given to me. So they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the nations and they to the circumcised.
10They asked only that we should remember the poor, which was the very thing I was eager to do.
12Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they came, he drew back and kept apart, because he was afraid of those who were circumcised.
13The other Jews joined him in this pretence, so that even Barnabas was carried away by their pretending.
14But when I saw that they were not walking straight, in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, "If you are a Jew, yet live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, why do you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?"
15"We are Jews by birth, and not sinners from among the Gentiles."
16"Yet we know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. So we too have believed in Jesus Christ, so that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law. For by the works of the law no one will be justified."
17"But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves are also found to be sinners, does that make Christ a servant of sin? Certainly not."
18"For if I build again the things I tore down, I show myself to be a lawbreaker."
19"For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God."
20"I am crucified with Christ. Yet I live; and it is no longer I, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."
21"I do not set aside the grace of God. For if righteousness comes by the law, then Christ died for nothing."