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But we are truly God's people. And it is not because someone has circumcised us. It is God's own Spirit that leads us to worship God. We thank God because of what Christ Jesus has done for us. We know that it is not human ideas that can save us.[a]

For myself, I could have trusted those human ideas. Perhaps somebody may think that they could trust in those things to save them. Then I would have an even better reason to trust in them. I belong to Israel's people, to Benjamin's tribe. I am a true Jew. They circumcised me when I was eight days old. I was a Pharisee, and I obeyed the Jewish rules very carefully.

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Footnotes

  1. 3:3 If we believe in Christ, we become God's people because Christ died on our behalf. God gives us his Holy Spirit to lead us. So we have something much better than a mark on our bodies. Some false teachers were saying that Christians had to be circumcised. They said, ‘Unless that happens, you do not belong to God's people.’ Paul is telling the Christians that they must not believe these people.