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This letter is from Paul, an apostle. I was not appointed by any group of people or any human authority, but by Jesus Christ himself and by God the Father, who raised Jesus from the dead.
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All the brothers and sisters here join me in sending this letter to the churches of Galatia.
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May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.
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Jesus gave his life for our sins, just as God our Father planned, in order to rescue us from this evil world in which we live.
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I am shocked that you are turning away so soon from God, who called you to himself through the loving mercy of Christ. You are following a different way that pretends to be the Good News
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but is not the Good News at all. You are being fooled by those who deliberately twist the truth concerning Christ.
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Let God's curse fall on anyone, including us or even an angel from heaven, who preaches a different kind of Good News than the one we preached to you.
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I say again what we have said before: If anyone preaches any other Good News than the one you welcomed, let that person be cursed.
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Obviously, I'm not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ's servant.
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Dear brothers and sisters, I want you to understand that the gospel message I preach is not based on mere human reasoning.
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I received my message from no human source, and no one taught me. Instead, I received it by direct revelation from Jesus Christ.
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You know what I was like when I followed the Jewish religion--how I violently persecuted God's church. I did my best to destroy it.
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I was far ahead of my fellow Jews in my zeal for the traditions of my ancestors.
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But even before I was born, God chose me and called me by his marvelous grace. Then it pleased him
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to reveal his Son to me so that I would proclaim the Good News about Jesus to the Gentiles. When this happened, I did not rush out to consult with any human being.
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Nor did I go up to Jerusalem to consult with those who were apostles before I was. Instead, I went away into Arabia, and later I returned to the city of Damascus.
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Then three years later I went to Jerusalem to get to know Peter, and I stayed with him for fifteen days.
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The only other apostle I met at that time was James, the Lord's brother.
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I declare before God that what I am writing to you is not a lie.
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After that visit I went north into the provinces of Syria and Cilicia.
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And still the Christians in the churches in Judea didn't know me personally.
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All they knew was that people were saying, "The one who used to persecute us is now preaching the very faith he tried to destroy!"