Galatians 1

¹ From Paul to the churches of Galatia, and from all the brothers who are here with me,

² an apostle who does not owe his authority to men or his appointment to any human being but who has been appointed by Jesus Christ and by God the Father who raised Jesus from the dead.

³ We wish you the grace and peace of God our Father and of the Lord Jesus Christ,

⁴ who in order to rescue us from this present wicked world sacrificed himself for our sins, in accordance with the will of God our Father,

⁵ to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

⁶ I am astonished at the promptness with which you have turned away from the one who called you and have decided to follow a different version of the Good News.

⁷ Not that there can be more than one Good News; it is merely that some troublemakers among you want to change the Good News of Christ;

⁸ and let me warn you that if anyone preaches a version of the Good News different from the one we have already preached to you, whether it be ourselves or an angel from heaven, he is to be condemned.

⁹ I am only repeating what we told you before: if anyone preaches a version of the Good News different from the one you have already heard, he is to be condemned.

¹⁰ So now whom am I trying to please – man, or God? Would you say it is men’s approval I am looking for?[*a] If I still wanted that, I should not be what I am – a servant of Christ.

¹¹ The fact is, brothers, and I want you to realise this, the Good News I preached is not a human message

¹² that I was given by men, it is something I learnt only through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

¹³ You must have heard of my career as a practising Jew, how merciless I was in persecuting the Church of God, how much damage I did to it,

¹⁴ how I stood out among other Jews of my generation, and how enthusiastic I was for the traditions of my ancestors.

¹⁵ Then God, who had specially chosen me while I was still in my mother’s womb,[*b] called me through his grace and chose

¹⁶ to reveal his Son in me, so that I might preach the Good News about him to the pagans. I did not stop to discuss this with any human being,

¹⁷ nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were already apostles before me, but I went off to Arabia[*c] at once and later went straight back from there to Damascus.

¹⁸ Even when after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and stayed with him for fifteen days,

¹⁹ I did not see any of the other apostles; I only saw James, the brother of the Lord,

²⁰ and I swear before God that what I have just written is the literal truth.

²¹ After that I went to Syria and Cilicia,

²² and was still not known by sight to the churches of Christ in Judaea,

²³ who had heard nothing except that their one-time persecutor was now preaching the faith he had previously tried to destroy;

²⁴ and they gave glory to God for me.