1From Paul-an apostle [chosen] not by any group or individual but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who brought him back to life- 2and all the believers who are with me. To the churches in Galatia.

3Good will and peace are yours from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! 4In order to free us from this present evil world, Christ took the punishment for our sins, because that was what our God and Father wanted. 5Glory belongs to our God and Father forever! Amen.

6I'm surprised that you're so quickly deserting Christ, who called you in his kindness, to follow a different kind of good news. 7But what some people are calling good news is not really good news at all. They are confusing you. They want to distort the Good News about Christ. 8Whoever tells you good news that is different from the Good News we gave you should be condemned to hell, even if he is one of us or an angel from heaven. 9I'm now telling you again what we've told you in the past: If anyone tells you good news that is different from the Good News you received, that person should be condemned to hell.

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

11I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the Good News I have spread is not a human message. 12I didn't receive it from any person. I wasn't taught it, but Jesus Christ revealed it to me.

13You heard about the way I once lived when I followed the Jewish religion. You heard how I violently persecuted God's church and tried to destroy it. 14You also heard how I was far ahead of other Jews in my age group in following the Jewish religion. I had become that fanatical for the traditions of my ancestors. 15But God, who appointed me before I was born and who called me by his kindness, was pleased 16to show me his Son. He did this so that I would tell people who are not Jewish that his Son is the Good News. When this happened, I didn't talk it over with any other person. 17I didn't even go to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was. Instead, I went to Arabia and then came back to Damascus.

18Then, three years later I went to Jerusalem to become personally acquainted with Cephas. I stayed with him for fifteen days. 19I didn't see any other apostle. I only saw James, the Lord's brother. 20(God is my witness that what I'm writing is not a lie.) 21Then I went to the regions of Syria and Cilicia. 22The churches of Christ in Judea didn't know me personally. 23The only thing they had heard was this: "The man who persecuted us is now spreading the faith that he once tried to destroy." 24So they praised God for what had happened to me.