Bearing One Another’s Burdens
6 My dear family, if someone is found out in some trespass, then you – the ‘spiritual’ ones! – should set such a person right, in a spirit of gentleness. Watch out for yourselves: you too may be tested. 2 Carry each other’s burdens; that’s the way to fulfil the Messiah’s law. 3 If you think you’re something when you are not, you deceive yourself. 4 Every one of you should test your own work, and then you will have a reason to boast of yourself, not of somebody else. 5 Each of you, you see, will have to carry your own load.
Practical Support in the Church
6 If someone is being taught the word, they should share with the teacher all the good things they have. 7 Don’t be misled; God won’t have people turning their noses up at him. What you sow is what you’ll reap. 8 Yes: if you sow in the field of your flesh you will harvest decay from your flesh, but if you sow in the field of the spirit you will harvest eternal life from the spirit. 9 Don’t lose your enthusiasm for behaving properly. You’ll bring in the harvest at the proper time, if you don’t become weary. 10 So, then, while we have the chance, let’s do good to everyone, and particularly to the household of the faith.
Boasting in the Cross
11 Look at the large-size letters I’m writing to you in my own hand. 12 It’s the people who want to make a fine showing in the flesh who are trying to force you into getting circumcised – for this purpose only, that they may avoid persecution for the Messiah’s cross. 13 You see, even the circumcised ones don’t keep the law; rather, they want you to be circumcised, so that they may boast about your flesh.
14 As for me, God forbid that I should boast – except in the cross of our Lord Jesus the Messiah, through whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. 15 Circumcision, you see, is nothing; neither is uncircumcision! What matters is new creation. 16 Peace and mercy on everyone who lines up by that standard – yes, on God’s Israel.
17 For the rest, let nobody make trouble for me. You see, I carry the marks of Jesus on my body.
18 The grace of our Lord Jesus the Messiah be with your spirit, my dear family. Amen.