The στοιχεῖα (see on v 3), it is now made plain, not only regulated the Jewish way of life under law; they also regulated the pagan way of life on the service of gods that were no gods. To be enslaved to such counterfeit deities was to be enslaved to the στοιχεῖα, and the Galatians would be enslaved to the στοιχεῖα all over again if they ‘reverted’ not to their former paganism but to Jewish religious practices. That, as Paul saw it, his Gentile readers were tending to revert to a form of religion