For you allow it, if a man brings you into bondage, if a man devours you, if a man takes from you, if a man exalts himself, if a man strikes you on the face.
Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
But I fear that by some means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds will be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
And that because of false brethren brought in without our knowledge, who came in secretly to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage:
But now, after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how can you turn back to the weak and impoverished principles, to which you desire again to be in bondage?
As many as desire to make a pleasing show in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised; but only so that they do not suffer persecution for the cross of Christ.