9 We must not get tired of doing good. We will receive our harvest of eternal life at the right time. We must not give up.
10 When we have the opportunity to do good to anyone, we should do it. But we should give special attention to those who are in the family of believers.
11 This is my own handwriting. You can see how big the letters are.
12 Those men who are trying to force you to be circumcised are only doing it so that their people will accept them. They are afraid they will be persecuted if they follow only the cross of Christ.
13 They are circumcised, but they don’t obey the law themselves. They want you to be circumcised so that they can boast about what they did to you.
14 I hope I will never boast about things like that. The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ is my only reason for boasting. Through Jesus’ death on the cross the world is dead to me, and I am dead to the world.
15 It doesn’t matter if anyone is circumcised or not. The only thing that matters is this new life we have from God.