You meticulously observe days and months and seasons and years.
Parallel translations
- WEB You observe days, months, seasons, and years.
- KJV Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.
- BSB You are observing special days and months and seasons and years!
- NKJV You observe days and months and seasons and years.
- NLT You are trying to earn favor with God by observing certain days or months or seasons or years.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The Galatians were observing special days, months, seasons, and years as a means of religious standing. Paul sees this as evidence they were slipping back into legal bondage.
Overview
Paul points to their adoption of a calendar of religious observances, likely Jewish festivals being pressed on them by the false teachers, as proof of their backward drift. The concern is not the existence of such days but the attempt to gain or maintain righteousness through them. Faithful Christians have applied this against any reliance on ritual observance for justification, while still valuing ordered worship.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Col 2:16–17Let no one therefore judge you in eating, or in drinking, or with respect to a feast day or a new moon or a Sabbath day,
- Rom 14:5One man esteems one day as more important. Another esteems every day alike. Let each man be fully assured in his own mind.
- Lev 23:1–44Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
- Lev 25:13“‘In this Year of Jubilee each of you shall return to his property.
- Num 28:1–29Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
- Lev 25:1Yahweh said to Moses in Mount Sinai,
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Christ became a curse for us to redeem us from the law's curse, that we might receive the Spirit and be sons — justified by faith in him, not by works.
How Galatians 4:10 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.