Berean Standard Bible
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
King James Version
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
About this verse
The noun is singular: "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." One fruit, nine qualities — a single harvest with nine flavors, not a menu from which you pick your strengths. And fruit is a loaded word choice. Fruit is grown, not manufactured; it comes from conditions — soil, sun, time — not from effort applied directly to the fruit. Then the wry closing line: "Against such things there is no law." No legislature has ever needed to regulate an excess of kindness.
Paul writes to the churches of Galatia against teachers who had made law-keeping the measure of standing with God. This list directly answers the "works of the flesh" catalog just before it, and the two headings are the argument: works are performed; fruit is produced. The Spirit-led life is not lawless — it grows the very things law was reaching for.
The list gets turned into a self-improvement checklist, which inverts its point. You cannot gut out joy or white-knuckle gentleness for long. Your part is the conditions — abiding, the company you keep with God — and the growing is his. If you want to gauge spiritual health, this list beats most metrics: not gifts, not output, but what is quietly ripening in you.
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