As for me, brethren, if I am still a preacher of circumcision, how is it that I am still suffering persecution? In that case the Cross has ceased to be a stumbling-block!
and Paul desiring that he should accompany him on his journey, took him and circumcised him on account of the Jews in those parts, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.
Now what they have been repeatedly told about you is that you teach all the Jews among the Gentiles to abandon Moses, and that you forbid them to circumcise their children or observe old-established customs.
They laid hands on him, crying out, »Men of Israel, help! help! This is the man who goes everywhere preaching to everybody against the Jewish people and the Law and this place. And besides, he has even brought Gentiles into the Temple and has desecrated this holy place.«
Yet just as, at that time, the child born in the common course of nature persecuted the one whose birth was due to the power of the Spirit, so it is now.
All who desire to display their zeal for external observances try to compel you to receive circumcision, but their real object is simply to escape being persecuted for the Cross of Christ.