Live honorable lives as you mix with unbelievers, even though they accuse you of being evildoers. For they will see your beautiful works and have a reason to glorify God in the day he visits us.
“My people are foolish because they don’t know who I really am. They are reckless, senseless children. They think they are wise, but they are cunning in sinfulness and clueless in righteousness.”
These individuals are nothing but brute beasts—irrational creatures, born in the wild to be caught and destroyed—and they will perish like beasts. They are professional insulters, who slander whatever they don’t understand, and in their destruction they will be destroyed.
Throughout human history the fingerprints of God were upon them, yet they refused to honor him as God or even be thankful for his kindness. Instead, they entertained corrupt and foolish thoughts about what God was like. This left them with nothing but misguided hearts, steeped in moral darkness.
These people insult anything they don’t understand. They behave like irrational beasts by doing whatever they feel like doing. Because they live by their animal instincts, they corrupt themselves and bring about their own destruction.
Mercy kissed me, even though I used to be a blasphemer, a persecutor of believers, and a scorner of what turned out to be true. I was ignorant and didn’t know what I was doing.
For it wasn’t that long ago that we behaved foolishly in our stubborn disobedience. We were easily led astray as slaves to worldly passions and pleasures. We wasted our lives in doing evil, and with hateful jealousy we hated others.
What has happened to you foolish Galatians? Who has put you under an evil spell? Did God not open your eyes to see the meaning of Jesus’ crucifixion? Was he not revealed to you as the crucified one?
Five of them were foolish and ill-prepared, for they took no extra oil for their lamps. Five of them were wise, for they took flasks of olive oil with their lamps.
with gentleness and respect. Maintain a clean conscience, so that those who slander you for living a pure life in Christ will have to lie about you and will be ashamed because of their slander.