1You foolish Galatians! Who has put a spell on you, so that you do not obey the truth? Jesus Christ was set out clearly before your eyes as crucified.
2This is the one thing I want to learn from you. Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law, or by hearing and believing?
3Are you so foolish? You began in the Spirit. Are you now made perfect by the flesh?
4Have you suffered so many things for nothing? If it really was for nothing.
5God gives you the Spirit and works miracles among you. Does he do this because you do the works of the law, or because you hear and believe?
6It is just as Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.
7So you should know this: the people who have faith are the children of Abraham.
8The scripture saw ahead of time that God would make the nations righteous through faith. So it announced the good news to Abraham beforehand, saying, "In you all nations will be blessed."
9So then those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, who believed.
10All who depend on the works of the law are under a curse. For it is written, "Cursed is everyone who does not keep on doing all the things written in the book of the law."
11It is clear that no one is made righteous before God by the law, for, "The righteous will live by faith."
12The law is not about faith. Instead it says, "The man who does these things will live by them."
13Christ bought us back from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree."
14This happened so that the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, and so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
15Brothers and sisters, let me speak the way people usually do. Even when an agreement is only a man's covenant, once it has been confirmed, no one can cancel it or add to it.
16Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. It does not say, "And to seeds," as if to many, but as to one, "And to your seed," which is Christ.
17This is what I mean. God confirmed a covenant beforehand in Christ. The law came four hundred and thirty years later, and it cannot cancel that covenant or make the promise useless.
18For if the inheritance comes by the law, then it no longer comes by promise. But God gave it to Abraham by a promise.
19Then what was the purpose of the law? It was added because of wrongdoing, until the seed should come to whom the promise was made. It was put in place by angels through the hand of a go-between.
20Now a go-between is not needed for one party alone, but God is one.
21Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not. For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would truly have come by the law.
22But the scripture has shut up everything under sin, so that the promise might be given, through faith in Jesus Christ, to those who believe.
23Before faith came, we were kept under the law. We were shut in until the faith that was going to come would be revealed.
24So the law was our guardian and teacher, to bring us to Christ, so that we might be made righteous by faith.
25But now that faith has come, we are no longer under such a teacher.
26For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
27All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
28There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.
29And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.