1 Fourteen years later I went again to Jerusalem with Barnabas. I took Titus with me also.
2 I went in response to a revelation. I demonstrated to them the way I spread the good news among the people of the nations. I did this privately before them for they have a reputation. I am concerned that by any means I should be running, or had run, in vain.
3 Titus was with me and he was not persuaded to be circumcised. He is a Greek.
4 This occurred because of the false brothers brought in secretly. They came to spy out our liberty that we have in Christ Jesus. This was so they might bring us into bondage.
5 We did not yield to them for a moment or an hour! That way the truth of the good news the whole body of Christian teachings might continue with you.
6 Those who were recognized as important people did not add a single thing to my message. What sort of people they were makes no difference to me. God does not play favorites show partiality.
7 On the contrary, they saw that I had been entrusted with the good news to people who are not circumcised. Just as Peter had been entrusted with the good news to the people who are circumcised.
8 The one who made Peter an apostle to the Jewish people who are circumcised also made me an apostle to the people of the nations who are not circumcised.
9 When they saw the grace that was given to me, James, Cephas Peter and John, they who were known to be pillars, gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship. We were to go to the nations and they were to go to the people who are circumcised.
10 They wanted us to remember the poor. I was eager zealous to do this very thing.
11 When Cephas came to Antioch, I openly resisted him because he was completely wrong.
12 He ate with the people of the nations until some men James sent arrived. When they arrived, he drew back and separated himself. He feared those who were of the circumcised people.
13 The rest of the Jews were hypocrites with him, so much that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.
14 I saw that they did not walk uprightly according to the truth of the good news. Therefore I said to Cephas, in front of them all: »If you, being a Jew, live as the nations do and not as the Jews, why do you compel the people of the nations to live like the Jews?«
15 We are Jews by birth, and not sinners from the nations.
16 Yet we know that a man is not righteous by the works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. We believed on Christ Jesus, that we might be righteous by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the law. The works of the law justify no one.
17 We sought to be righteous in Christ. And we were found to be sinners. Is Christ a minister of sin? God forbid.
18 If I build up again the things that I destroyed, I prove myself a transgressor.
19 I, through the law, died to the law that I might live to for God.
20 I have been impaled with Christ. It is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me. The life that I now live in the flesh physical body I live by faith. This is the faith that is in the Son of God. He loved me and gave himself up for me.
21 I do not reject the grace totally undeserved gift of God: for if righteousness is gained through the law, then Christ died for nothing.