Galatians 5 - EasyEnglish Bible 2024（EASY）

Chapter 5Christ makes people free from special rules

1Christ has made us free so that we can be really free! So be strong in your minds. Do not let yourselves become slaves to the Jewish rules again.

2Listen carefully! I, Paul, tell you this. If you allow someone to circumcise you, then Christ will be worth nothing to you.

3I will say it again very clearly. Every man who lets someone circumcise him must then obey all the Jewish rules.

4Some of you think that God will accept you as right if you obey all the rules of his Law. But if you think that, you have made yourselves separate from Christ. You have turned away from God's grace.

5But if we believe in Christ, we are sure that God will accept us as right with him. As we wait for that, God's Spirit helps us to know that it is true.

6We belong to Christ Jesus. So it does not matter whether anyone has circumcised us or not. The only thing that matters is that we trust in Christ. And as a result we will love other people.

7Like good runners in a race, you were doing very well! You should not have let anyone turn you away from God's true message.

8It is not God who has caused you to change what you believe. No! God is the one who has chosen you to belong to him.

9People say this: ‘Only a small amount of yeast in the flour will cause a loaf of bread to grow big.’

10But the Lord helps me to feel sure about you. I know that you will agree with what I say about this. But as for the man who is confusing you, God will punish him. It does not matter who he is, God will punish him.

11My Christian friends, I certainly do not teach that believers must be circumcised. If I still teach that, why do people still cause me to suffer? My message about Christ's death on the cross would not cause anyone to become angry.

12Those people who are causing trouble and want to circumcise you should cut their own bodies even more! Yes, that is what they should do!

God's Spirit shows Christians how to live

13My Christian friends, God has chosen you to serve him as free people. But you are still weak and human. So you are not free to do anything that you might want to do. Instead, you must serve one another, because you love each other.

14One rule brings together all the rules in God's Law. That one rule says, ‘Love other people as much as you love yourself.’

15So do not live like wild animals. Wild animals fight and they eat each other. If you attack each other like that, be very careful! You may destroy one another completely.

16So this is what I say: Let God's Spirit show you how to live in a good way. Then you will not do the wrong things that your weak human nature may want to do.

17The things that your human nature wants to do are completely different from the things that God's Spirit wants. The things that God's Spirit wants are completely different from the things that our human nature wants. Our own thoughts fight against what God's Spirit wants us to do. As a result, you are not free to do the things that you really want to do.

18But if God's Spirit leads you, then the rules of God's Law do not control you.

19Everyone knows the kinds of bad things that human nature wants to do. People have sex with people that they are not married to. They do things that are bad and disgusting.

20They worship idols. They do magic to hurt other people. They become enemies and they fight one another. They are jealous of other people. They become very angry. They want to please themselves and to be important. They cause trouble. They divide people into separate groups.

21They want things that belong to other people. They are drunks. They have wild parties. And they like to do many other bad things like these. So I warn you again, as I have already warned you before. People who continue to do these bad things will not receive the blessings of the kingdom of God.

22But God's Spirit causes us to live in a different way. We love other people. We are happy and we have peace in our minds. We are patient, kind and good. People can trust us to do what is right.

23We respect other people and we control ourselves properly. God's Spirit helps us to live in that way. There is no law that says these things are wrong.

24We belong to Christ. As a result, we no longer obey our weak human nature. We do not do the bad things that our thoughts want us to do. It is as if we have killed those thoughts on the cross.

25Now it is God's Spirit that gives us life. So we must let God's Spirit lead us in the way that we live.

26We must not become proud. We must not be jealous of each other, so that we cause trouble to one another.