5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
It should be noted that many of the modern translations of the New Testament give different renderings of this verse, and something requires to be said about them. The difference in the translations is due to different readings in the Greek manuscripts, the best of which read as the modern translations render the words, e.g. the RSV and the NEB: 'For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast, therefore...' (RSV); 'Christ set us free, to be free men. Stand firm, then...' (NEB). The AV follows other manuscripts in its rendering. The difference between them lies in a one-letter word in the Greek, which is omitted in the manuscripts followed by the RSV and NEB. So considerable a scholar as Lightfoot holds that to omit this one-letter word is to give the Greek a reading so difficult as to be unintelligible. And, certainly, the RSV wording, 'For freedom Christ has set us free' is an extremely awkward and unusual sort of statement, and hardly, one feels, what Paul would be likely to say. If, then, we follow the Greek on which the AV bases its translation (as I think we should), we may still nevertheless translate differently from the AV, that is, by linking the verse with the last words of 4:31: 'We are not children of any bondwoman, but of the free, by virtue of the freedom with which Christ has made us free. Stand fast therefore (in that freedom), and be not entangled again...'. Either way, however, the two possible renderings of the Greek (followed by the AV) do not really alter the Apostle's meaning.