Jesus

my dear children, I am suffering the pains of giving birth to you all over again — and this will go on until the Messiah takes shape in you.

What the Messiah has freed us for is freedom! Therefore, stand firm, and don’t let yourselves be tied up again to a yoke of slavery.

Mark my words — I, Sha’ul, tell you that if you undergo b’rit-milah the Messiah will be of no advantage to you at all!

You who are trying to be declared righteous by God through legalism have severed yourselves from the Messiah! You have fallen away from God’s grace!

When we are united with the Messiah Yeshua, neither being circumcised nor being uncircumcised matters; what matters is trusting faithfulness expressing itself through love.

Whatever means of persuasion he used was not from the One who calls you.

I am confident that since you are united with the Lord, you will take no other view; and I am confident that the one who has been disturbing you, whoever he may be, will have to bear his punishment.

Bear one another’s burdens — in this way you will be fulfilling the Torah’s true meaning, which the Messiah upholds.

It is those who want to look good outwardly who are trying to get you to be circumcised. The only reason they are doing it is to escape persecution for preaching about the Messiah’s execution-stake.

But as for me, Heaven forbid that I should boast about anything except the execution-stake of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah! Through him, as far as I am concerned, the world has been put to death on the stake; and through him, as far as the world is concerned, I have been put to death on the stake.

For neither being circumcised nor being uncircumcised matters; what matters is being a new creation.

From now on, I don’t want anyone to give me any more tsuris, because I have scars on my body to prove that I belong to Yeshua!

The grace of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah be with your spirit, brothers. Amen.

From: Sha’ul, by God’s will an emissary of the Messiah Yeshua To: God’s people living in Ephesus, that is, those who are trusting in the Messiah Yeshua:

Grace to you and shalom from God our Father and the Lord Yeshua the Messiah.

Praised be Adonai, Father of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, who in the Messiah has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heaven.

In the Messiah he chose us in love before the creation of the universe to be holy and without defect in his presence.

He determined in advance that through Yeshua the Messiah we would be his sons — in keeping with his pleasure and purpose —

so that we would bring him praise commensurate with the glory of the grace he gave us through the Beloved One.

In union with him, through the shedding of his blood, we are set free — our sins are forgiven; this accords with the wealth of the grace

he has lavished on us. In all his wisdom and insight

he has made known to us his secret plan, which by his own will he designed beforehand in connection with the Messiah

and will put into effect when the time is ripe — his plan to place everything in heaven and on earth under the Messiah’s headship.

Also in union with him we were given an inheritance, we who were picked in advance according to the purpose of the One who effects everything in keeping with the decision of his will,

so that we who earlier had put our hope in the Messiah would bring him praise commensurate with his glory.