Galatians 3:2-18

2I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?

3Are you so foolish? After starting in the Spirit, are you now finishing in the flesh? 4Have you suffered so much for nothing, if it really was for nothing? 5Does God lavish His Spirit on you and work miracles among you because you practice the law, or because you hear and believe?

6So also, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”1 7Understand, then, that those who have faith are sons of Abraham. 8The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and foretold the gospel to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.”2 9So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

10All who rely on works of the law are under a curse. For it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”3 11Now it is clear that no one is justified before God by the law, because, “The righteous will live by faith.”4 12The law, however, is not based on faith; on the contrary, “The man who does these things will live by them.”5

13Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”6 14He redeemed us in order that the blessing promised to Abraham7 would come to the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

15Brothers, let me put this in human terms. Even a human covenant, once it is ratified, cannot be canceled or amended. 16The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say, “and to seeds,” meaning many, but “and to your seed,”8 meaning One, who is Christ.

17What I mean is this: The law that came 430 years later does not revoke the covenant previously established by God, so as to nullify the promise. 18For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise; but God freely granted it to Abraham through a promise.