8. We preached to you the Good News. So if we ourselves, or even an angel from heaven, should preach to you something different, we should be judged guilty!
9. I said this before, and now I say it again: You have already accepted the Good News. If anyone is preaching something different to you, let that person be judged guilty!
10. Do you think I am trying to make people accept me? No, God is the One I am trying to please. Am I trying to please people? If I still wanted to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.
11. Brothers and sisters, I want you to know that the Good News I preached to you was not made up by human beings.
12. I did not get it from humans, nor did anyone teach it to me, but Jesus Christ showed it to me.
13. You have heard about my past life in the Jewish religion. I attacked the church of God and tried to destroy it.
14. I was becoming a leader in the Jewish religion, doing better than most other Jews of my age. I tried harder than anyone else to follow the teachings handed down by our ancestors.
15. But God had special plans for me and set me apart for his work even before I was born. He called me through his grace
16. and showed his son to me so that I might tell the Good News about him to those who are not Jewish. When God called me, I did not get advice or help from any person.
17. I did not go to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was. But, without waiting, I went away to Arabia and later went back to Damascus.