Galatians 2:18

Complete Jewish Bible

Indeed, if I build up again the legalistic bondage which I destroyed, I really do make myself a transgressor.

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
If I rebuild those things that I tore down, I show myself to be a lawbreaker.

King James Version (1611)
For if I build againe the things which I destroyed, I make my selfe a transgressour.

King James Version
For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.

English Standard Version
For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor.

New American Standard Bible
"For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a wrongdoer.

New Century Version
But I would really be wrong to begin teaching again those things that I gave up.

Amplified Bible
"For if I [or anyone else should] rebuild [through word or by practice] what I once tore down [the belief that observing the Law is essential for salvation], I prove myself to be a transgressor.

New American Standard Bible (1995)
"For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a transgressor.

Legacy Standard Bible
For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a transgressor.

Berean Standard Bible
If I rebuild what I have already torn down, I prove myself to be a lawbreaker.

Contemporary English Version
But if I tear down something and then build it again, I prove that I was wrong at first.

Darby Translation
For if the things I have thrown down, these I build again, I constitute myself a transgressor.

Easy-to-Read Version
But I would be wrong to begin teaching again those things that I gave up.

Geneva Bible (1587)
For if I build againe the things that I haue destroyed, I make my selfe a trespasser.

George Lamsa Translation
For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I will prove myself to be a transgressor of the law.

Good News Translation
If I start to rebuild the system of Law that I tore down, then I show myself to be someone who breaks the Law.

Lexham English Bible
For if I build up again these things which I destroyed, I show myself to be a transgressor.

Literal Translation
For what if I build again these things which I destroyed, I confirm myself as a transgressor.

American Standard Version
For if I build up again those things which I destroyed, I prove myself a transgressor.

Bible in Basic English
For if I put up again those things which I gave to destruction, I am seen to be a wrongdoer.

Hebrew Names Version
For if I build up again those things which I destroyed, I prove myself a law-breaker.

International Standard Version
For if I rebuild something that I tore down, I demonstrate that I am a wrongdoer.

Etheridge Translation
For, if those things which I destroyed I build again, I make it manifest of myself that I transgress the commandment.

Murdock Translation
For if I should build up again the things I had demolished, I should show myself to be a transgressor of the precept.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
For yf I builde agayne the thynges which I destroyed, then make I my selfe a trespasser.

English Revised Version
For if I build up again those things which I destroyed, I prove myself a transgressor.

World English Bible
For if I build up again those things which I destroyed, I prove myself a law-breaker.

Wesley's New Testament (1755)
God forbid. For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.

Weymouth's New Testament
Why, if I am now rebuilding that structure of sin which I had demolished, I am thereby constituting myself a transgressor;

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
God forbede. And if Y bylde ayen thingis that Y haue distruyed, Y make my silf a trespassour.

Update Bible Version
For if I build up again those things which I destroyed, I prove myself a transgressor.

Webster's Bible Translation
For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.

New English Translation
But if I build up again those things I once destroyed, I demonstrate that I am one who breaks God's law.

New King James Version
For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.

New Living Translation
Rather, I am a sinner if I rebuild the old system of law I already tore down.

New Life Bible
But if I work toward being made right with God by keeping the Law, then I make myself a sinner.

New Revised Standard
But if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor.

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
For, if, the things that I pulled down, these, again, I build, a transgressor, I prove, myself, to be.

Douay-Rheims Bible
For if I build up again the things which I have destroyed, I make myself a prevaricator.

Revised Standard Version
But if I build up again those things which I tore down, then I prove myself a transgressor.

Tyndale New Testament (1525)
For yf I bylde agayne yt which I destroyed. then make I my selfe a treaspaser.

Young's Literal Translation
for if the things I threw down, these again I build up, a transgressor I set myself forth;

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
For yf I buylde agayne yt which I haue destroyed, then make I my selfe a trespacer.

Mace New Testament (1729)
on the contrary, if I re-establish what I have demolish'd, I show myself a prevaricator.

Simplified Cowboy Version
I'd really be a sinner if I tried to make people do the things that I gave up when I signed on to ride for Jesus.

Contextual Overview

¹¹ Furthermore, when Kefa came to Antioch, I opposed him publicly, because he was clearly in the wrong. ¹² For prior to the arrival of certain people from [the community headed by] Ya‘akov, he had been eating with the Gentile believers; but when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, because he was afraid of the faction who favored circumcising Gentile believers. ¹³ And the other Jewish believers became hypocrites along with him, so that even Bar-Nabba was led astray by their hypocrisy. ¹⁴ But when I saw that they were not walking a straight path, keeping in line with the truth of the Good News, I said to Kefa, right in front of everyone, "If you, who are a Jew, live like a Goy and not like a Jew, why are you forcing the Goyim to live like Jews? ¹⁵ We are Jews by birth, not so-called ‘Goyishe sinners'; ¹⁶ even so, we have come to realize that a person is not declared righteous by God on the ground of his legalistic observance of Torah commands, but through the Messiah Yeshua's trusting faithfulness. Therefore, we too have put our trust in Messiah Yeshua and become faithful to him, in order that we might be declared righteous on the ground of the Messiah's trusting faithfulness and not on the ground of our legalistic observance of Torah commands. For on the ground of legalistic observance of Torah commands, no one will be declared righteous . ¹⁷ But if, in seeking to be declared righteous by God through our union with the Messiah, we ourselves are indeed found to be sinners, then is the Messiah an aider and abettor of sin? Heaven forbid! ¹⁸ Indeed, if I build up again the legalistic bondage which I destroyed, I really do make myself a transgressor. ¹⁹ For it was through letting the Torah speak for itself that I died to its traditional legalistic misinterpretation, so that I might live in direct relationship with God. ²⁰ When the Messiah was executed on the stake as a criminal, I was too; so that my proud ego no longer lives. But the Messiah lives in me, and the life I now live in my body I live by the same trusting faithfulness that the Son of God had, who loved me and gave himself up for me.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Galatians 2:4, Galatians 2:5, Galatians 2:12-16, Galatians 2:21, Galatians 4:9-12, Galatians 5:11, Romans 14:15, 1 Corinthians 8:11, 1 Corinthians 8:12

Reciprocal: Romans 6:15 - shall we

Cross-References

Genesis 1:31
God saw everything that he had made, and indeed it was very good. So there was evening, and there was morning, a sixth day.

Genesis 2:7
Then Adonai , God, formed a person from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, so that he became a living being.

Genesis 2:9
Out of the ground Adonai , God, caused to grow every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Genesis 2:11
The name of the first is Pishon; it winds throughout the land of Havilah, where there is gold.

Genesis 2:12
The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx stone are also found there.

Genesis 2:13
The name of the second river is Gichon; it winds throughout the land of Kush.

Genesis 3:12
The man replied, "The woman you gave to be with me — she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate."

Ruth 3:1
Na‘omi her mother-in-law said to her, "My daughter, I should be seeking security for you; so that things will go well with you.

Proverbs 18:22
He who finds a wife finds a great good; he has won the favor of Adonai .

1 Corinthians 7:36
Now if a man thinks he is behaving dishonorably by treating his fiancée this way, and if there is strong sexual desire, so that marriage is what ought to happen; then let him do what he wants — he is not sinning: let them get married.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

For if I build again the things which I destroyed,.... Which must be understood not of good things, for formerly he destroyed the faith of the Gospel, at least as much as in him lay, and now he built it up, established, and defended it; in doing which he did no evil, or made himself a transgressor, but the reverse; he showed himself a faithful minister of Christ: but of things not lawful, such as the rites and ceremonies of the law of Moses, which were now abrogated, and he had declared to be so all over the Gentile world; and therefore should he go about to establish these things as necessary to salvation, or teach men to join the observance of them with Christ's righteousness for justification, then, says he,

I make myself a transgressor: for he could not be otherwise, be the case how it would with respect to the abrogation, or non-abrogation of the law; for if the law was not abolished, then he made himself a transgressor of it; by neglecting it himself, and teaching others to do so; and if it was abolished, then it must be criminal in him to enforce the observance of it as necessary to a sinner's justification before God. Now though the apostle transfers this to himself, and spoke in his own person to decline all invidious reflections and characters; yet he tacitly regards Peter, and his conduct, who had been taught by the vision the abrogation of the ceremonial law, and acted accordingly by conversing and eating with the Gentiles, and had declared that law to be an insupportable yoke of bondage, which the Gentiles were not obliged to come under; and yet now, by his practice and example, built up and established those very things he had before destroyed, and therefore could not exculpate himself, from being a transgressor: or these things may regard sins and immoralities in life and conversation; and the apostle's sense be, that should he, or any other, take encouragement to sin from the doctrine of free justification by the righteousness of Christ, as if he was the author and minister of sin, and allowed persons in it; this would be to establish sin, which the righteousness of Christ justifies from, and engage in a living in sin, to which, by Christ's righteousness, they are dead unto; than which, nothing can be, a greater contradiction, and which must unavoidably make them not only transgressors of the law, by sinning against it, but apostates, as the word παραβατης here used signifies, from the Gospel; such must act quite contrary to the nature, use, and design of the Gospel in general, and this doctrine in particular, which teaches men to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and that being dead to sin, they should live unto righteousness.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For if I build again the things which I destroyed - Paul here uses the first person; but he evidently intends it as a general proposition, and means that if anyone does it he becomes a transgressor. The sense is, that if a man, having removed or destroyed that which was evil, again introduces it or establishes it, he does wrong, and is a transgressor of the Law of God. The particular application here, as it seems to me, is to the subject of circumcision and the other rites of the Mosaic law. They had been virtually abolished by the coming of the Redeemer, and by the doctrine of justification by faith. It had been seen that there was no necessity for their observance, and of that Peter and the others had been fully aware. Yet they were lending their influence again to establish them or to build them up again. They complied with them, and they insisted on the necessity of their observance. Their conduct, therefore, was that of building up again that which had once been destroyed, destroyed by the ministry, and toils, and death of the Lord Jesus, and by the fair influence of his gospel. To rebuild that again; to re-establish those customs, was wrong, and now involved the guilt of a transgression of the Law of God. Doddridge supposes that this is an address to the Galatians, and that the address to Peter closed at the previous verse. But it is impossible to determine this; and it seems to me more probable that this is all a part of the address to Peter; or rather perhaps to the assembly when Peter was present; see the note at Galatians 2:15.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 18. For if I build again the things which I destroyed — If I act like a Jew, and enjoin the observance of the law on the Gentiles, which I have repeatedly asserted and proved to be abolished by the death of Christ, then I build up what I destroyed, and thus make myself a transgressor, by not observing the law in that way in which I appear to enjoin the observance of it upon others.