Galatians 4:9-20 Now, however, when you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you are beginning to turn back to those weak and beggarly externalities, eager to be in bondage to them again?

MNT⁽ⁱ⁾ ⁹ Now, however, when you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how is it that you are beginning to turn back to those weak and beggarly externalities, eager to be in bondage to them again? ¹⁰ You are scrupulous, are you, in observing "days" and "months" and "seasons" and "years"? ¹¹ I am alarmed about you for fear lest I may have bestowed labor on you to no purpose. ¹² Brothers, I beseech you, become as I am, because I also have become as you are. You never did me any wrong; ¹³ on the contrary, you know that although it was illness which brought about my preaching the gospel to you at my first visit, ¹⁴ and although my bodily affliction was a trial to you, you did not scoff at it nor spurn me, but welcomed me like an angel of God, like Christ Jesus himself. ¹⁵ Why then did you account yourselves so happy? (For I bear you witness that if you could you would have torn out your own eyes and given them to me.) ¹⁶ Am I then become your enemy, because I am telling you the truth? ¹⁷ These men are courting your favor to no good purpose. They want to isolate you, so that you will be courting their favor. ¹⁸ It is always an honorable thing to have your favor sought in an honorable cause, always, and not only when I am with you. ¹⁹ O my little children, of whom I travail again in birth until Christ be formed within you! ²⁰ How I wish I could be with you now, that I might change my tone; for I am perplexed about you.