Galatians 1

1Paul, an apostle. I was not sent by people or chosen by any person. I was sent by Jesus Christ and by God the Father, who raised Jesus from death.

2All the brothers and sisters here with me join me in writing. To the churches in Galatia:

3May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.

4Jesus gave himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil world. He did this because God our Father wanted it.

5May God have glory forever and ever. Amen.

6I am shocked that you are turning away so quickly from the One who called you by the grace of Christ. You are turning to a different “good news” —

7which is not good news at all. Some people are confusing you and trying to twist the good news about Christ.

8But even if we, or an angel from heaven, were to preach a different “good news” from the one we preached to you, let that person be cursed.

9I have said it before, and I say it again: if anyone preaches to you a “good news” different from the one you received, let that person be cursed.

10Am I now trying to win people's approval, or God's? Am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

11Brothers and sisters, I want you to know that the good news I preached does not come from any human being.

12I did not receive it from a person, and no one taught it to me. Jesus Christ himself showed it to me.

13You have heard how I lived before, in the Jewish religion. I attacked God's church without mercy and tried to destroy it.

14In the Jewish religion I was ahead of many people my own age, because I worked so hard to follow the traditions of my ancestors.

15But God had set me apart even before I was born, and he called me by his grace. When God was pleased to

16show his Son to me, so that I could preach about the Son among people who are not Jews, I did not ask any human being for advice.

17I did not even go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before me. Instead, I went away to Arabia, and later I returned to Damascus.

18Three years later I went up to Jerusalem to meet Peter, and I stayed with him fifteen days.

19I did not see any of the other apostles, except James, the Lord's brother.

20I promise you, before God, that what I am writing to you is true. I am not lying.

21Later I went to the regions of Syria and Cilicia.

22The churches of Christ in Judea did not know me by sight.

23They only kept hearing people say: The man who used to attack us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.

24And they praised God because of me.