13. So Peter was a hypocrite. The other Jewish believers joined with him and were hypocrites, too. Even Barnabas was influenced by what these Jewish believers did.
14. I saw what they did. They were not following the truth of the Good News. So I spoke to Peter in front of them all. I said: “Peter, you are a Jew, but you are not living like a Jew. You are living like the non-Jewish people. So why do you now try to force the non-Jewish people to live like Jews?”
15. We were not born as non-Jewish “sinners,” but we were born as Jews.
16. Yet we know that a person is not made right with God by following the law. No! It is trusting in Jesus Christ that makes a person right with God. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus, that we might be made right with God. And we are right with God because we trusted in Christ—not because we followed the law. For no one can be made right with God by following the law.
17. We Jews came to Christ to be made right with God. So it is clear that we were sinners too. Does this mean that Christ makes us sinners? No!
18. But I would really be wrong to begin teaching again those things of the Law of Moses that I gave up.
19. I stopped living for the law. It was the law that put me to death. I died to the law so that I can now live for God. I was put to death on the cross with Christ.
20. I do not live anymore—it is Christ living in me. I still live in my body, but I live by faith in the Son of God. He loved me and gave himself to save me.
21. This gift is from God, and it is very important to me. If the law could make us right with God, then Christ did not have to die.