Part 5

005:003 I once more protest to every man who receives circumcision that he is under obligation to obey the whole Law of Moses.

005:004 Christ has become nothing to any of you who are seeking acceptance with God through the Law: you have fallen away from grace.

005:005 *We* have not, for through the Spirit we wait with longing hope for an acceptance with God which is to come through faith.

005:006 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any importance; but only faith working through love.

005:007 You were running the race nobly! Who has interfered and caused you to swerve from the truth?

005:008 No such teaching ever proceeded from Him who is calling you.

005:009 A little yeast corrupts the whole of the dough.

005:010 For my part I have strong confidence in you in the Lord that you will adopt my view of the matter. But the man-- be he who he may--who is troubling you, will have to bear the full weight of the judgement to be pronounced on him.

005:011 As for me, brethren, if I am still a preacher of circumcision, how is it that I am still suffering persecution? In that case the Cross has ceased to be a stumbling-block!

005:012 Would to God that those who are unsettling your faith would even mutilate themselves.

005:013 You however, brethren, were called to freedom. Only do not turn your freedom into an excuse for giving way to your lower natures; but become bondservants to one another in a spirit of love.

005:014 For the entire Law has been obeyed when you have kept the single precept, which says, "You are to love your fellow man equally with yourself."

005:015 But if you are perpetually snarling and snapping at one another, beware lest you are destroyed by one another.

005:016 This then is what I mean. Let your lives be guided by the Spirit, and then you will certainly not indulge the cravings of your lower natures.

005:017 For the cravings of the lower nature are opposed to those of the Spirit, and the cravings of the Spirit are opposed to those of the lower nature; because these are antagonistic to each other, so that you cannot do everything to which you are inclined.

005:018 But if the Spirit is leading you, you are not subject to Law.

005:019 Now you know full well the doings of our lower natures. Fornication, impurity, indecency, idol-worship, sorcery;

005:020 enmity, strife, jealousy, outbursts of passion, intrigues, dissensions, factions, envyings;

005:021 hard drinking, riotous feasting, and the like. And as to these I forewarn you, as I have already forewarned you, that those who are guilty of such things will have no share in the Kingdom of God.

005:022 The Spirit, on the other hand, brings a harvest of love, joy, peace; patience towards others, kindness, benevolence;

005:023 good faith, meekness, self-restraint.

005:024 Against such things as these there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their lower nature with its passions and appetites.

005:025 If we are living by the Spirit's power, let our conduct also be governed by the Spirit's power.

005:026 Let us not become vain-glorious, challenging one another, envying one another.

006:001 Brethren, if anybody be detected in any misconduct, you who are spiritual should restore such a one in a spirit of meekness. And let each of you keep watch over himself, lest he also fall into temptation.

006:002 Always carry one another's burdens, and so obey the whole of Christ's Law.

006:003 For if there is any one who thinks himself to be somebody when he is nobody, he is deluding himself.

006:004 But let every man scrutinize his own conduct, and then he will find out, not with reference to another but with reference to himself, what he has to boast of.