Galatians 5:13
New International Version
You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.

New Living Translation
For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love.

English Standard Version
For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

Berean Standard Bible
For you, brothers, were called to freedom; but do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. Rather, serve one another in love.

Berean Literal Bible
For you brothers were called to freedom, but not the freedom for an opportunity to the flesh. Rather, serve one another through love.

King James Bible
For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.

New King James Version
For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

New American Standard Bible
For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another through love.

NASB 1995
For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

NASB 1977
For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

Legacy Standard Bible
For you were called to freedom, brothers; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

Amplified Bible
For you, my brothers, were called to freedom; only do not let your freedom become an opportunity for the sinful nature (worldliness, selfishness), but through love serve and seek the best for one another.

Christian Standard Bible
For you were called to be free, brothers and sisters; only don’t use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another through love.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
For you were called to be free, brothers; only don’t use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another through love.

American Standard Version
For ye, brethren, were called for freedom; only use not your freedom for an occasion to the flesh, but through love be servants one to another.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
But you have been called to liberty, my brethren, only let not your liberty be an opportunity of the flesh, but you should be serving one another by love.

Contemporary English Version
My friends, you were chosen to be free. So don't use your freedom as an excuse to do anything you want. Use it as an opportunity to serve each other with love.

Douay-Rheims Bible
For you, brethren, have been called unto liberty: only make not liberty an occasion to the flesh, but by charity of the spirit serve one another.

English Revised Version
For ye, brethren, were called for freedom; only use not your freedom for an occasion to the flesh, but through love be servants one to another.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
You were indeed called to be free, brothers and sisters. Don't turn this freedom into an excuse for your corrupt nature to express itself. Rather, serve each other through love.

Good News Translation
As for you, my friends, you were called to be free. But do not let this freedom become an excuse for letting your physical desires control you. Instead, let love make you serve one another.

International Standard Version
For you, brothers, were called to freedom. Only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity to gratify your flesh, but through love make it your habit to serve one another.

Literal Standard Version
For you were called to freedom, brothers, only the freedom [is] not for an occasion to the flesh, but serve one another through the love,

Majority Standard Bible
For you, brothers, were called to freedom; but do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. Rather, serve one another in love.

New American Bible
For you were called for freedom, brothers. But do not use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh; rather, serve one another through love.

NET Bible
For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity to indulge your flesh, but through love serve one another.

New Revised Standard Version
For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another.

New Heart English Bible
For you, brothers, were called for freedom. Only do not use your freedom for gain to the flesh, but through love be servants to one another.

Webster's Bible Translation
For, brethren, ye have been called to liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.

Weymouth New Testament
You however, brethren, were called to freedom. Only do not turn your freedom into an excuse for giving way to your lower natures; but become bondservants to one another in a spirit of love.

World English Bible
For you, brothers, were called for freedom. Only don’t use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants to one another.

Young's Literal Translation
For ye -- to freedom ye were called, brethren, only not the freedom for an occasion to the flesh, but through the love serve ye one another,

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
Freedom in Christ
12As for those who are agitating you, I wish they would proceed to emasculate themselves! 13For you, brothers, were called to freedom; but do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. Rather, serve one another in love. 14The entire law is fulfilled in a single decree: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”…

Cross References
John 8:32
Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

1 Corinthians 8:9
Be careful, however, that your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak.

1 Corinthians 9:19
Though I am free of obligation to anyone, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.

2 Corinthians 3:17
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

Galatians 2:4
This issue arose because some false brothers had come in under false pretenses to spy on our freedom in Christ Jesus, in order to enslave us.

Galatians 5:1
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not be encumbered once more by a yoke of slavery.

Ephesians 5:21
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.


Treasury of Scripture

For, brothers, you have been called to liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.

ye.

Galatians 5:1
Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

Galatians 4:5-7,22-31
To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons…

Isaiah 61:1
The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;

only.

1 Corinthians 8:9
But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumblingblock to them that are weak.

1 Peter 2:16
As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.

2 Peter 2:19
While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.

but.

Galatians 5:14,22
For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself…

Galatians 6:2
Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.

Mark 10:43-45
But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: …

Jump to Previous
Bondservants Chance Condition Excuse Flesh Free Freedom Gain However Indulge Liberty Love Marked Nature Natures Occasion Opportunity Rather Servants Serve Sinful Spirit Turn Use Way
Jump to Next
Bondservants Chance Condition Excuse Flesh Free Freedom Gain However Indulge Liberty Love Marked Nature Natures Occasion Opportunity Rather Servants Serve Sinful Spirit Turn Use Way
Galatians 5
1. He wills them to stand in their liberty,
3. and not to observe circumcision;
13. but rather love, which is the sum of the law.
19. He lists the works of the flesh,
22. and the fruits of the Spirit,
25. and exhorts to walk in the Spirit.














(13-15) The Judaisers would deserve such a fate; for they are undoing the whole object with which you were called. You were called, not to legal bondage, but to freedom. This caution only is needed: Do not make freedom a pretext for self-indulgence. One servitude you may submit to--the service of love. So doing, you will fulfil the Law without being legalists. He who loves his neighbour as himself will need no other rule. On the other hand, dissensions will be fatal, not to one party only, but to all who take part in them.

(13) For.--This connecting particle supplies the reason for the Apostle's severe treatment of the Judaisers.

An occasion to the flesh.--Do not, under the name "liberty," give way to sensual excesses. This was the especial danger of the Gentile churches, such as Corinth, from which, as we have seen, the Apostle may have been writing. Galatia, too, was a Gentile church; and though it was for the present subject rather to Judaising influences, the character of the people was fickle, and St. Paul may have thought it well to hint a caution in this direction.

Serve.--There is a stress upon this word. The Apostle had been dissuading the Galatians from submitting to other forms of servitude. This one he will permit them.

Verse 13. - For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty (ὑμεῖς γὰρ ἐπ ἐλευθερίᾳ ἐκλήθητε ἀδελφοί); for ye, brethren, were called unto (Greek, for) freedom. The "for" points back to the closing words of the preceding verse, which implied a settled state of well-being from which those troublers were driving his readers; that happy state (the apostle says) was the very glory and essence of their "calling." This, of course, was that condition of free men described at the end of the foregoing chapter, and summarized in the first verse of this chapter. This is again, even more briefly, recapitulated in the first clause of the present verse. As the summary in the first verse supplied a starting-point for the warnings against the Judaizers which have taken up the foregoing twelve verses, so this new summary furnishes the starting-point for exhortations designed to guard the evangelical doctrine against antinomian perversion, by insisting upon the moral behaviour required of those who enjoy the freedom which Christ gives. These exhortations occupy the remainder of this chapter and a part of the next. "Ye," being what ye are, believers baptized into Christ. The verb "were called" expresses a complete idea, meaning of itself without any adjunct, "called by God to be people of his own" (cf. "calleth," ver. 8, and the passages there cited). The words, "unto," or "for, freedom," supply an adjunct notion; as in Ephesians 4:4, the clause, "in one hope of your calling," does to the same verb. So again 1 Thessalonians 4:7," For God called us, not unto [or, 'for' ] uncleanness, but in sanctification.' 'The preposition ἐπί, both in the passage last cited and in the present verse, denotes the condition or understanding upon which God had called them: they were "called" upon the understanding that they should be in a state of liberty. So Ephesians 2:10, "Created in Christ Jesus unto ['Greek,' for] good works." God calls us in Christ to be free in these three respects:

(1) free from condemnation and conscience of guiltiness;

(2) free from pupil-age to a ceremonial institute of positive, carnal ordinances, and from bondage to a letter-Law;

(3) free, as consciously his children, knit to him by his adopting Spirit, which makes us partakers of his nature. Only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh (μόνον μὴ τὴν ἐλευθερίαν εἰς ἀφορμὴν τῆς σαρκός); only, no freedom which shall be an occasion to the flesh! or, only, make not your freedom into an occasion for the flesh. The noun ἐλευθερίαν, being in the accusative, cannot be taken as simply a resumption of the ἐλευθερίᾳ immediately before. In his eagerness to at once bar the antinomian's abuse of the gospel, the apostle omits the verb which should account for this accusative; and the result is a sentence which may be taken as grouping with various passages in classical Greek authors, being in fact quite a natural way of speaking in any language; such as in Demosthenes, ' Philippians,' 1. p. 45, "No ten thousand mercenaries for me! (μή μοι μυριόυς... ξένους);" Sophocles, ' Ant.,' 573, "No more loiterings! but... (μὴ τριβὰς ἔτ ἀλλά...); "Aristophanes, ' Ach.,' 326, "No false pretences for me, but... (μή μοι πρόφασιν ἀλλά...)." In such cases it simply weakens the vivacity of the style, if we supply any verb. The alternative rendering supplies δῶτε, which is in fact found in two uncial manuscripts, F, G, or ἀποχρήσησθε, proposed by OEcumenius. In the former way of construing we have in thought to supply a second τὴν after ἐλευθερίαν, as in 1 Corinthians 10:18, Βλέπετε τὸν Ἰσραὴλ κατὰ σάρκα: 2 Corinthians 7:7; Colossians 1:8; Ephesians 2:15. The preposition εἰς is need as Romans 11:9; 1 Corinthians 14:22, etc. The sense of the noun ἀφορμή, starting-point, is well illustrated by its use, in the military language of Greece, for a "basis of operations" (cf. Romans 7:8, 11; 2 Corinthians 5:12; 1 Timothy 5:14). Reflection at once shows us that a "freedom" which allows a man to obey the behests of his lower nature is only by a false use of the term capable of being grouped with that freedom wherewith Christ makes us free. It adopts out of the latter the single element of emancipation from ceremonial law and letter-Law, and lets go altogether the concomitant notions of spiritual emancipation which are of its very essence. Such an emancipation hands its victim clean over to the thraldom of sin (John 8:34; 2 Peter 2:18, 19). St. Peter, in his First Epistle, addressed to a large group of Churches founded by St. Paul, including those of Galatia, has a number of passages which apparently take up sentiments and even expressions found in St. Paul's writings (see 1 Peter 5:12), as it were, ratifying them; and possibly he has an eye to the present verse when he writes (1 Peter 2:16), "as free, and not using your freedom for a cloak of wickedness, but as bond-servants of God." "The flesh" is not to have its own way, but is to own the mastery of the Spirit. But by love serve one another (ἀλλὰ διὰ τῆς ἀγάπης δουλεύετε ἀλλήλοις); but through love be in bondage to one another; i.e. let love make you bondservants to one another. The verb δουλεύω also means "do acts of bond-service,' as Ephesians 6:7 and 1 Timothy 6:2. This sense is included in the "being in bondage ' here spoken cf. In the present posture of affairs in these Churches, the apostle sees occasion for selecting just here one particular branch of Christian goodness to enforce upon their observance. Presently after (vers. 16-20 he enlarges the field of view; though even there still giving much prominence to the vices of malignity and to the benignant virtues. Just now he has his eye especially on the evils of contentiousness (ver. 15), and upon love as their corrective. We may suppose such evils were now especially rife amongst the Galatians, whose natural character, commonly described as quarrelsome, was apparently evincing itself in connection with the disputes which the teaching and yet more the outward action of the Judaizers were giving rise to. In fact, a loving temper of mind, along with other benefits, is recommended also by this, that it guards Churches from corrupting innovations in doctrine and Church practice; checking our self-will and our obtrusive vanity, it leads us to avoid giving uneasiness to others by thrusting upon them new notions or new modes of conduct, and makes it our ambition to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. The pattern set by our Lord (John 13:15), both in washing his disciples' feet and indeed in his whole incarnate life (Philippians 2:7), was grandly imitated by the apostle himself (1 Corinthians 9:19-22), who in outward things habitually sacrificed the pride of independence and self-assertion, and the pride of apparent self-consistency, in his devotion to the spiritual welfare of men. He here preaches just what he himself practised.

Parallel Commentaries ...


Greek
For
γὰρ (gar)
Conjunction
Strong's 1063: For. A primary particle; properly, assigning a reason.

you,
Ὑμεῖς (Hymeis)
Personal / Possessive Pronoun - Nominative 2nd Person Plural
Strong's 4771: You. The person pronoun of the second person singular; thou.

brothers,
ἀδελφοί (adelphoi)
Noun - Vocative Masculine Plural
Strong's 80: A brother, member of the same religious community, especially a fellow-Christian. A brother near or remote.

were called
ἐκλήθητε (eklēthēte)
Verb - Aorist Indicative Passive - 2nd Person Plural
Strong's 2564: (a) I call, summon, invite, (b) I call, name. Akin to the base of keleuo; to 'call'.

to
ἐπ’ (ep’)
Preposition
Strong's 1909: On, to, against, on the basis of, at.

freedom;
ἐλευθερίᾳ (eleutheria)
Noun - Dative Feminine Singular
Strong's 1657: Freedom, liberty, especially: a state of freedom from slavery. From eleutheros; freedom.

but
μόνον (monon)
Adverb
Strong's 3440: Alone, but, only. Neuter of monos as adverb; merely.

[do] not [use]
μὴ (mē)
Adverb
Strong's 3361: Not, lest. A primary particle of qualified negation; not, lest; also (whereas ou expects an affirmative one) whether.

[your]
τὴν (tēn)
Article - Accusative Feminine Singular
Strong's 3588: The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.

freedom
ἐλευθερίαν (eleutherian)
Noun - Accusative Feminine Singular
Strong's 1657: Freedom, liberty, especially: a state of freedom from slavery. From eleutheros; freedom.

as
εἰς (eis)
Preposition
Strong's 1519: A primary preposition; to or into, of place, time, or purpose; also in adverbial phrases.

an opportunity
ἀφορμὴν (aphormēn)
Noun - Accusative Feminine Singular
Strong's 874: From a compound of apo and hormao; a starting-point, i.e. an opportunity.

for the
τῇ (tē)
Article - Dative Feminine Singular
Strong's 3588: The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.

flesh.
σαρκί (sarki)
Noun - Dative Feminine Singular
Strong's 4561: Flesh, body, human nature, materiality; kindred.

Rather,
ἀλλὰ (alla)
Conjunction
Strong's 235: But, except, however. Neuter plural of allos; properly, other things, i.e. contrariwise.

serve
δουλεύετε (douleuete)
Verb - Present Imperative Active - 2nd Person Plural
Strong's 1398: To be a slave, be subject to, obey, be devoted. From doulos; to be a slave to.

one another
ἀλλήλοις (allēlois)
Personal / Reciprocal Pronoun - Dative Masculine Plural
Strong's 240: One another, each other. Genitive plural from allos reduplicated; one another.

in
διὰ (dia)
Preposition
Strong's 1223: A primary preposition denoting the channel of an act; through.

love.
ἀγάπης (agapēs)
Noun - Genitive Feminine Singular
Strong's 26: From agapao; love, i.e. Affection or benevolence; specially a love-feast.


Links
Galatians 5:13 NIV
Galatians 5:13 NLT
Galatians 5:13 ESV
Galatians 5:13 NASB
Galatians 5:13 KJV

Galatians 5:13 BibleApps.com
Galatians 5:13 Biblia Paralela
Galatians 5:13 Chinese Bible
Galatians 5:13 French Bible
Galatians 5:13 Catholic Bible

NT Letters: Galatians 5:13 For you brothers were called for freedom (Gal. Ga)
Galatians 5:12
Top of Page
Top of Page