Galatians 6:13
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For the circumcised do not even keep the law themselves, yet they want you to be circumcised that they may boast in your flesh.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
Translate, "For not even do they who submit to circumcision, keep the law themselves (Rom 2:17-23), but they wish you (emphatical) to be circumcised," &c. They arbitrarily selected circumcision out of the whole law, as though observing it would stand instead of their non-observance of the rest of the law. that they may glory in your flesh--namely, in the outward change (opposed to an inward change wrought by the SPIRIT) which they have effected in bringing you over to their own Jewish-Christian party.
Open source ↗This chapter chiefly consists of two parts. In the former the apostle gives us several plain and practical directions, which more especially tend to instruct Christians in their duty to one another, and to promote the communion of saints in love (Gal 6:1-10). In the latter he revives the main design of the epistle, which was to fortify the Galatians against the arts of their judaizing teachers, and confirm them in the truth and liberty of the gospel, for which purpose he, I. Gives them the true character of these teachers, and shows them from what motives, and with what views, they acted (Gal 6:11-14). And, II. On the other hand he acquaints them with his own temper and behaviour. From both these they might easily see how little reason they had to slight him, and to fall in with them. And then he concludes the epistle with a solemn benediction.
Open source ↗Cross-references
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For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh—
Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven works through the whole batch of dough?
They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves to depravity. For a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.
Since many are boasting according to the flesh, I too will boast.
So practice and observe everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You traverse land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.
Therefore, stop boasting in men. All things are yours,
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You pay tithes of mint, dill, and cumin. But you have disregarded the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.