Galatians 2 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

Then, fourteen years later, I went up to Jerusalem again with Barnabas, and I brought Titus along too.

I went because God revealed to me that I should. And I laid out for them the good news that I've been announcing among non-Jewish people — though I did this privately with the recognized leaders — to make sure I wasn't running, or hadn't already run, for nothing.

But not even Titus, who was with me — a Greek — was forced to be circumcised.

This issue came up because some fake brothers had been smuggled in — people who snuck in to spy on the freedom we have in the One Jesus, so they could drag us back into slavery.

We didn't give in to them for even a moment, so that the truth of the good news would be preserved for you.

As for those who were considered important — whatever they used to be makes no difference to me; God doesn't play favorites — those recognized leaders added nothing to my message.

Instead, they saw that I had been entrusted with the good news for the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with it for the circumcised.

Because the same God who worked through Peter as an ambassador to the circumcised also worked through me as an ambassador to the non-Jewish people.

And when James, Peter, and John — the ones recognized as pillars — saw the undeserved kindness given to me, they shook hands with Barnabas and me as a sign of partnership. We would go to the non-Jewish people, and they would go to the circumcised.

They only asked that we remember the poor — which was already something I was eager to do.

But when Peter came to Antioch, I confronted him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong.

Before certain people came from James, Peter used to eat with non-Jewish believers. But when they arrived, he started pulling back and separating himself, because he was afraid of the circumcision crowd.

The rest of the Jewish believers joined in his hypocrisy too, so that even Barnabas got swept up in their act.

But when I saw that they weren't walking straight with the truth of the good news, I said to Peter in front of everyone: "If you, a Jewish person, have been living like a non-Jewish person and not like a Jewish person, how can you now force non-Jewish people to live like Jews?"

"We are Jews by birth, not 'failures' from the non-Jewish world.

Yet we know that no one is made right with God by doing what the law demands, but only through trust in the One Jesus. So we too have put our trust in the One Jesus, so that we could be made right with God through trust in the One — and not by doing what the law demands — because no human being will ever be made right with God by doing what the law demands.

But if, while trying to be made right with God through the One, we ourselves turn out to be failures too — does that make the One an agent of failure? Absolutely not!

Because if I rebuild the very system I tore down, I prove that I was wrong to tear it down in the first place.

Because through the law, I died to the law — so that I could live for God.

I have been executed on the stake with the One. I am alive, but it's no longer me living — it's the One living in me. The life I now live in this body, I live by trusting the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me.

I'm not going to throw away God's undeserved kindness. Because if being made right with God comes through the law, then the One died for nothing.