Galatians 3:1-14

1You Christians in Galatia are like fools! Someone has taught you to believe crazy ideas! I taught you clearly that Jesus Christ died on the cross as a sacrifice on our behalf. You understood that.

2So think about this: When you received God's Spirit, was it because you had obeyed the rules of God's Law? No! You received God's Spirit because you heard the message about Christ and you believed it.

3Do not think like fools! You first became believers by the help of God's Spirit. So do not try now to continue by your own human power. That will never get you to the end!

4You have had many troubles as believers. I want those troubles to help you. Surely they could not be without any good purpose.

5God gives to you the gift of his Spirit. He also does powerful miracles among you. But he does not do these things because you obey the rules of his Law. No, he does them because you believed the message about Christ which you heard.

6Think about our Jewish ancestor Abraham. We know this: ‘Abraham believed God. As a result, God accepted Abraham as right with him’.

7So you should understand who Abraham's children really are. It is those people who trust God.

8The Bible already said what would happen at a future time. It said that God would make the Gentiles right with himself, if they believed in him. God showed this good news to Abraham a long time before it happened. He said to Abraham, ‘I will bless people from all countries because of you.’

9So then, God did not bless only Abraham when he trusted God. God also blesses all people who trust him like Abraham did.

10But some people try to obey all the rules of God's Law. They think that they will become right with God if they do this very well. But God will speak against people like that and he will punish them. It is written in the Bible: ‘God will punish everyone who does not always obey all the rules in his Law completely.’

11We know that the Law can not cause anyone to become right with God. That is clear because the Bible says, ‘The person that God has accepted as right will live because they trust him.’

12But the Law does not tell people to trust God. It tells people about all the things that they must do. The Bible says, ‘The person who obeys all the rules in God's Law completely will live’.

13So God's Law shows that it is right for God to punish us. But Christ took that punishment away from us, because God punished him instead of us. It says in the Bible: ‘When people hang someone on a tree to kill him, it shows that God has cursed that person.’

14Christ died in that way so that God would bless the Gentiles in the way that he blessed Abraham. Also, if we believe in Christ, we can then receive God's Spirit that he promised.