5. We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.
6. As for those who were held in high esteem – whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favouritism – they added nothing to my message.
7. On the contrary, they recognised that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised.
8. For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles.
9. James, Cephas and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognised the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised.
10. All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.
11. When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.
12. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group.
13. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.
14. When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, ‘You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?
15. ‘We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles
16. know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.