to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory for ever. Amen.

[This letter is from] Paul, who was called by the will of God to be an apostle of Jesus Christ, and [from] our brother Sosthenes;

To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified (set apart, made holy) in Christ Jesus, who are selected and called as saints (God’s people), together with all those who in every place call on and honor the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:

Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

For it has been reported to me concerning you, my brothers, by those who are from Chloe's household, that there are contentions among you.

Is Christ divided? Was it Paul who was crucified for you? Or were you baptized in Paul’s name?

For the word of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us who are saved it is the power of God.

As it says in the holy Writings, I will put an end to the wisdom of the wise, and will put on one side the designs of those who have knowledge.

Where is the wise? where is he who has knowledge of the law? where is the man of this world who has a love of discussion? has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

For since the world through all its [earthly] wisdom failed to recognize God, God in His wisdom was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached [regarding salvation] to save those who believe [in Christ and welcome Him as Savior].

while we proclaim a Christ who has been crucified--to the Jews a stumbling-block, to Gentiles foolishness,

but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks (Gentiles), Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

For consider, brethren, God's call to you. Not many who are wise with merely human wisdom, not many of position and influence, not many of noble birth have been called.

but God chose the foolish things of the world that he might put to shame those who are wise. God chose the weak things of the world, that he might put to shame the things that are strong;

those who were looked upon by the world as vile, as despicable, as nothing, these has God chosen to reduce their sufficiency to nothing.

But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who is made by God unto us wisdom,

But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:

that, according as it hath been written, 'He who is glorying -- in the Lord let him glory.'

For I had not determined to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, - and, him, as one who had been crucified!

We speak wisdom, however, among them that are fullgrown: yet a wisdom not of this world, nor of the rulers of this world, who are coming to nought:

but just as it is written [in Scripture],“Things which the eye has not seen and the ear has not heard,
And which have not entered the heart of man,
All that God has prepared for those who love Him [who hold Him in affectionate reverence, who obey Him, and who gratefully recognize the benefits that He has bestowed].”

For who among men knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of the man, which is in him? even so the things of God none knoweth, save the Spirit of God.

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the [Holy] Spirit who is from God, so that we may know and understand the [wonderful] things freely given to us by God.

We also speak of these things, not in words taught or supplied by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining and interpreting spiritual thoughts with spiritual words [for those being guided by the Holy Spirit].

A person who isn't spiritual doesn't accept the things of God's Spirit, for they are nonsense to him. He can't understand them because they are spiritually evaluated.

and he who is spiritual, doth discern indeed all things, and he himself is by no one discerned;

For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.

However, brothers and sisters, I could not talk to you as to spiritual people, but [only] as to worldly people [dominated by human nature], mere infants [in the new life] in Christ!

Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?

I planted and Apollos watered; but it was God who was, all the time, giving the increase.

so that neither is he who is planting anything, nor he who is watering, but He who is giving growth -- God;

and he who is planting and he who is watering are one, and each his own reward shall receive, according to his own labour,

For any other foundation can no one lay than the one being laid, who is Jesus Christ.

Whatever is used by those who build upon this foundation, whether gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw,

But if any person’s work is burned up [by the test], he will suffer the loss [of his reward]; yet he himself will be saved, but only as [one who has barely escaped] through fire.

God will destroy anyone who would destroy God's temple, for God's temple is sacred ??and that is what you are.

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God; for it is written, He who takes the wise in their craftiness.

Let us be judged as servants of Christ, and as those who are responsible for the secret things of God.

for of nothing to myself have I been conscious, but not in this have I been declared right -- and he who is discerning me is the Lord:

Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.

For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?

For, I think, God has exhibited us apostles at the end of the line, like men sentenced to death [and paraded as prisoners in a procession], because we have become a spectacle to the world [a show in the world’s amphitheater], both to angels and to men.

we are made fools for our attachment to Christ, while you, who are christians too, still pass for the wise: we are in poverty, but you are in power: you meet with esteem, but we find contempt.

This I don't write to give you any confusion, but by way of remonstrance, to you who are my dear children.

For even if you were to have ten thousand spiritual instructors--for all that you could not have several fathers. It is I who in Christ Jesus became your father through the Good News.

For this cause have I sent unto you Timotheus, who is my beloved son, and faithful in the Lord, who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways which be in Christ, as I teach every where in every church.

But I am coming to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will know not the talk of the ones who have become arrogant, but the power.

and ye are having been puffed up, and did not rather mourn, that he may be removed out of the midst of you who did this work,

for I indeed, as being absent as to the body, and present as to the spirit, have already judged, as being present, him who so wrought this thing:

In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I am with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus,

In my letter I said to you that you were not to keep company with those who go after the desires of the flesh;

not that in this world you are to keep wholly aloof from such as they, any more than from people who are avaricious and greedy of gain, or from worshippers of idols. For that would mean that you would be compelled to go out of the world altogether.

But actually, I have written to you not to associate with any so-called [Christian] brother if he is sexually immoral or greedy, or is an idolater [devoted to anything that takes the place of God], or is a reviler [who insults or slanders or otherwise verbally abuses others], or is a drunkard or a swindler—you must not so much as eat with such a person.

For what business is it of mine to judge outsiders (non-believers)? Do you not judge those who are within the church [to protect the church as the situation requires]?

God alone sits in judgment on those who are outside [the faith]. Remove the wicked one from among you [expel him from your church].

If any of you has a legal dispute against another, do you dare go to court before the unrighteous, and not before the saints?

If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church.

I say this to move you to shame. What, cannot there be found among you one wise man who shall be able to decide between his brethren,

but instead, brother goes to law against brother, and that before [judges who are] unbelievers?

On the contrary, it is you who wrong and defraud, and you do this even to your brothers and sisters.

Do ye not know that unrighteous persons shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not err: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor those who make women of themselves, nor who abuse themselves with men,

nor theives, nor avaricious people, nor any who are addicted to hard drinking, to abusive language or to greed of gain, will inherit God's Kingdom.

And God who made the Lord Jesus come back from the dead will do the same for us by his power.

have ye not known that he who is joined to the harlot is one body? 'for they shall be -- saith He -- the two for one flesh.'

And he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit;

flee the whoredom; every sin -- whatever a man may commit -- is without the body, and he who is committing whoredom, against his own body doth sin.

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is within you, whom you have [received as a gift] from God, and that you are not your own [property]?

It is not the wife who has the rights to her own body, but the husband. In the same way, it is not the husband who has the rights to his own body, but the wife.

But I tell the unmarried, and women who are widows, that it is well for them to remain as I am.

But I proclaim to those who have married, not I, but the Lord, That a wife shall not depart from her husband

To the rest I declare—I, not the Lord [since Jesus did not discuss this]—that if any [believing] brother has a wife who does not believe [in Christ], and she consents to live with him, he must not leave her.

And a woman who has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to dwell with her, let her not leave her husband.

For the husband who has not faith is made holy through his Christian wife, and the wife who is not a Christian is made holy through the brother: if not, your children would be unholy, but now are they holy.

But if the one who is not a Christian has a desire to go away, let it be so: the brother or the sister in such a position is not forced to do one thing or the other: but it is God's pleasure that we may be at peace with one another.

If any man who is a Christian has had circumcision, let him keep so; and if any man who is a Christian has not had circumcision, let him make no change.

for he who is in the Lord -- having been called a servant -- is the Lord's freedman: in like manner also he the freeman, having been called, is servant of Christ:

It is the Lord who has made payment for you: be not servants of men.

Now concerning the virgins [of marriageable age] I have no command of the Lord, but I give my opinion as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy.

But if you do marry, you have not sinned [in doing so]; and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned [in doing so]. Yet those [who marry] will have troubles (special challenges) in this life, and I am trying to spare you that.

But this I say, brethren, the time is straitened. For the rest, that they who have wives, be as not having any:

and those who weep, as though they did not weep; and those who rejoice, as though they did not rejoice; and those who buy, as though they did not possess [anything];

and those who use the world [taking advantage of its opportunities], as though they did not make full use of it. For the outward form of this world [its present social and material nature] is passing away.

But I desire to have you to be free from cares. He who is unmarried is concerned for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord;

But the one who is married cares for the things of the world, how he may please his wife,

There is also a difference between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman cares about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But she who is married cares about the things of the world -- how she may please her husband.

At the same time, if any man considers he is not behaving properly to the maid who is his spiritual bride, if his passions are strong and if it must be so, then let him do what he wants ??let them be married; it is no sin for him.

But he who stands firm in his heart, having no need, but has authority over his own will, and has judged this in his heart to keep his own virginity, he does well.

so that both he who is giving in marriage doth well, and he who is not giving in marriage doth better.

The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.

I now want to reply to the matter of idolatrous sacrifices [which you wrote to me about]. We know that we all possess knowledge. [Note: This may be a statement posed to Paul by the Corinthians, who seemed quite preoccupied with "knowledge"]. Knowledge [only] makes people arrogant, while love builds them up [spiritually].

But anyone who loves God is known by him.

For though there are those who have the name of gods, in heaven or on earth, as there are a number of gods and a number of lords,

But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.

But remember, it is not everyone who has this 'knowledge.' Some who have hitherto been accustomed to idols eat the food as food which has been really offered to an idol, and so their weaker conscience is contaminated.

But you must see to it that this right of yours does not become a stumbling block for those who are weak.

For if a man see thee who hast knowledge sitting at meat in an idol's temple, will not his conscience, if he is weak, be emboldened to eat things sacrificed to idols?

And through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died?

My defence to those who examine me is this:

Have we no right to take along a wife who is a believer, even as the rest of the apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?