²¹ “Then the Lord said to me, ‘Go; I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’ ”^(A)

¹⁷ I will rescue you^(A) from your own people and from the Gentiles.^(B) I am sending you to them

⁵ Through him we received grace^(A) and apostleship to call all the Gentiles^(B) to the obedience that comes from^[a] faith^(C) for his name’s sake.

¹³ I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles,^(A) I take pride in my ministry

¹⁶ to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles.^(A) He gave me the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God,^(B) so that the Gentiles might become an offering^(C) acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

¹⁶ to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles,^(A) my immediate response was not to consult any human being.^(B)

⁷ On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task^(A) of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised,^[a](B) just as Peter^(C) had been to the circumcised.^{[b] 8} For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle^(D) to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle^(E) to the Gentiles. ⁹ James,^(F) Cephas^[c](G) and John, those esteemed as pillars,^(H) gave me and Barnabas^(I) the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me.^(J) They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles,^(K) and they to the circumcised. ¹⁰ All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor,^(L) the very thing I had been eager to do all along.

Paul Opposes Cephas

¹¹ When Cephas^(M) came to Antioch,^(N) I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. ¹² For before certain men came from James,^(O) he used to eat with the Gentiles.^(P) But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group.^{(Q) 13} The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas^(R) was led astray.

¹⁴ When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel,^(S) I said to Cephas^(T) in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew.^(U) How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?^(V)

¹⁵ “We who are Jews by birth^(W) and not sinful Gentiles^{(X) 16} know that a person is not justified by the works of the law,^(Y) but by faith in Jesus Christ.^(Z) So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in^[d] Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.^(AA)

¹⁷ “But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners,^(AB) doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not!^{(AC) 18} If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker.

¹⁹ “For through the law I died to the law^(AD) so that I might live for God.^{(AE) 20} I have been crucified with Christ^(AF) and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.^(AG) The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God,^(AH) who loved me^(AI) and gave himself for me.^{(AJ) 21} I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law,^(AK) Christ died for nothing!”^[e]

God’s Marvelous Plan for the Gentiles

3 For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner^(A) of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles—

⁸ Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people,^(A) this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles^(B) the boundless riches of Christ,^(C)