⁸But then indeed, not knowing God, ye were in bondage to those who by nature are not gods; ⁹but now, knowing God, but rather being known by God, how do ye turn again to the weak and beggarly principles to which ye desire to be again anew in bondage? ¹⁰Ye observe days and months and times and years. ¹¹I am afraid of you, lest indeed I have laboured in vain as to you.

¹²Be as I am, for I also am as ye, brethren, I beseech you: ye have not at all wronged me. ¹³But ye know that in weakness of the flesh I announced the glad tidings to you at the first; ¹⁴and my temptation, which was in my flesh, ye did not slight nor reject with contempt; but ye received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. ¹⁵What then was your blessedness? for I bear you witness that, if possible, plucking out your own eyes ye would have given them to me. ¹⁶So I have become your enemy in speaking the truth to you?

¹⁷They are not rightly zealous after you, but desire to shut you out from us, that ye may be zealous after them. ¹⁸But it is right to be zealous at all times in what is right, and not only when I am present with you—

¹⁹my children, of whom I again travail in birth until Christ shall have been formed in you: ²⁰and I should wish to be present with you now, and change my voice, for I am perplexed as to you.

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Galatians 4:8–9: Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again…?

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