1Then, fourteen years later, I went to Jerusalem again with Barnabas, and I also took Titus with me.
2I went because God revealed to me that I should go. I presented to them the Good News that I preach among the Gentiles. I did this privately with those who were leaders, so that my past and present work would not be pointless.
3But not even Titus, who was with me, though he was a Greek, was forced to be circumcised.
4This happened because some false believers were secretly brought in. They sneaked in to spy on our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, hoping to make us slaves.
5But we did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the Good News would remain with you.
6But those who were considered important (it doesn't matter to me what they were, God doesn’t show favoritism to anyone) — those respected leaders shared nothing new with me.
7Instead, they saw that I had been entrusted with the Good News for non-Jews, just as Peter had been entrusted with the Good News for Jews.
8For God, who appointed Peter to be an apostle to the Jews, also appointed me to be an apostle to the Gentiles.
9And when James, Cephas, and John, who were considered pillars of the church, recognized the grace God had given me, they offered Barnabas and me their hand in fellowship. They agreed that we should go to the non-Jews, and they would go to the Jews.
10They only asked us to remember the poor, which I was already very eager to do.
11But when Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him publicly, because he was clearly in the wrong.
12Before certain people came from James, Peter used to eat with non-Jews. But when they arrived, he began to withdraw and separate himself, because he was afraid of those who insisted on circumcision.
13The rest of the Jews also joined him in his hypocrisy, so much so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.
14But when I saw that they were not living truthfully according to the Good News, I said to Peter in front of everyone, “If you, being a Jew, live like a non-Jew and not like a Jew, why do you force non-Jews to live like Jews?”
15“We are Jews by birth, not Gentile sinners.
16Yet we know that a person is made right with God not by following the law, but by believing in Christ Jesus. So we, too, have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God by faith in Christ, and not by following the law, because no one will be made right with God by following the law.”
17But if, while we try to be made right with God through Christ, we ourselves are also found to be sinners, does that mean Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not!
18For if I rebuild the very things I destroyed, I prove myself to be a law-breaker.
19Through the law, I died to the law, so that I might live for God.
20I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in my body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
21I do not set aside the grace of God. For if being made right with God comes through the law, then Christ died for no reason!”