1 Paul, an emissary^[a] commissioned directly by Jesus the Anointed One and God the Father (who raised Him from the dead)—not (as some claim) an agent of men or any person— ² and all the brothers and sisters with me to you, the churches of Galatia.

³ May the grace and peace of God the Father and the Lord Jesus the Anointed live in you; ⁴ He is the very Savior who rescues us from this present, perverse age dominated by evil by giving His life according to our Father’s will to deal with our sins. ⁵ May God’s glorious name forever receive honor. Amen.

⁶ Frankly I am stunned. I cannot believe that you have abandoned God so quickly—even after He called you through the grace of the Anointed One—and have fallen for a different gospel. ⁷ Actually there is only one true gospel of the Anointed, and you—because of divisive prodding by others—are accepting a distorted version which is not the gospel at all!

⁸ No matter the source of the false gospel, even if it is preached by us or a heavenly messenger, ignore it. May those who add to or subtract from the gospel of Jesus be eternally cursed! ⁹ Listen again: if anyone preaches to you a gospel other than what you have accepted, may he find himself cursed!

¹⁰ Do you think I care about the approval of men or about the approval of God? Do you think I am on a mission to please people? If I am still spinning my wheels trying to please men, then there is no way I can be a servant of the Anointed One, the Liberating King.

¹¹ Know this, dear brothers and sisters: the good news I brought to you isn’t the latest in fiction or the product of some creative mind. ¹² It is not a legend I learned or one that has been passed down from person to person, ear to ear. I was gifted with this message as Jesus the Anointed revealed Himself miraculously to me. ¹³ Surely you are familiar with my personal history, with my dedication to the teachings and traditions of Judaism. I persecuted the church of God—in fact, I meant to destroy it. ¹⁴ I excelled in the teachings of Judaism far above other Jewish leaders, and I was zealous to practice the ways of our ancestors. ¹⁵ But God—who set me apart even before birth and called me by His grace—chose, to His great delight, ¹⁶ to reveal His Son in me so I could tell His story among the outsider nations. I didn’t confer with anyone right away, ¹⁷ nor did I go to those who were already emissaries^[b] in Jerusalem. I went straight to Arabia and later returned to Damascus.

¹⁸ After living this adventurous mission for three years, I made my way to Jerusalem and spent 15 days with Cephas, whom you know as Peter. ¹⁹ But I didn’t see any emissary^[c] other than James, our Lord’s brother. ²⁰ (You can be certain that what I am offering you is an authentic account. Before God, it’s the whole truth—I wouldn’t lie.) ²¹ Later I journeyed to Syria and Cilicia; ²² and since I had spent so little time in Judea among the churches of the Anointed One, no one there could pick me out of a crowd. ²³ But stories of my call and mission preceded me: “The very man who wanted to kill us all is now preaching the faith he once labored to destroy.” ²⁴ And so they praised God for the miracle He did in my life.