Take them and purify yourself along with them, and pay their expenses so that they may shave their heads; and all will know that there is nothing to the things which they have been told about you, but that you yourself also live orderly, keeping the law — James proposes that Paul fund the completion of four men's Nazirite vows and participate in the purification ritual, demonstrating his allegiance to Torah. This is a politically shrewd move designed to silence calumny, yet it places Paul in a morally complex position: must apostolic freedom to Gentiles be purchased at the cost of performing Jewish observance?

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