to the church of God at Corinth, to those who are consecrated in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, as well as to all who, wherever they may be, invoke the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord no less than ours:

Thus you lack no spiritual endowment during these days of waiting till our Lord Jesus Christ is revealed;

Brothers, for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ I beg of you all to drop these party-cries. There must be no cliques among you; you must regain your common temper and attitude.

I am thankful now that I baptized none of you, except Crispus and Gaius,

so that no one can say you were baptized in my name.

(Well, I did baptize the household of Stephanas, but no one else, as far as I remember.)

Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel. And to preach it with no fine rhetoric, lest the cross of Christ should lose its power!

For when the world with all its wisdom failed to know God in his wisdom, God resolved to save believers by the 'sheer folly' of the Christian message.

No, God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame what is strong;

that no person may boast in the sight of God.

No, as it is written, what no eye has ever seen, what no ear has ever heard, what never entered the mind of man, God has prepared all that for those who love him.

What human being can understand the thoughts of a man, except the man's own inner spirit? So too no one understands the thoughts of God, except the Spirit of God.

Now we have received the Spirit ??not the spirit of the world but the Spirit that comes from God, that we may understand what God bestows upon us.

And this is what we discuss, using language taught by no human wisdom but by the Spirit. We interpret what is spiritual in spiritual language.

The spiritual man, again, can read the meaning of everything; and yet no one can read what he is.

For who ever understood the thoughts of the Lord, so as to give him instruction? No one. Well, our thoughts are Christ's thoughts.

I fed you with milk, not with solid food. You were not able for solid food, and you are not able even now;

The foundation is laid, namely Jesus Christ, and no one can lay any other.

but in every case the nature of his work will come out; the Day will show what it is, for the Day breaks in fire, and the fire will test the work of each, no matter what that work may be.

Do you not know you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells within you?

Let no one deceive himself about this; whoever of you imagines he is wise with this world's wisdom must become a 'fool,' if he is really to be wise.

Now in this matter of stewards your first requirement is that they must be trustworthy.

Now I have applied what has been said above to myself and Apollos, to teach you ... that you are not to be puffed up with rivalry over one teacher as against another.

Your boasting is no credit to you. Do you not know that a morsel of dough will leaven the whole lump?

What I now write is that you are not to associate with any so-called brother who is immoral or lustful or idolatrous or given to abuse or drink or robbery. Associate with him! Do not even eat with him!

Outsiders it is no business of mine to judge. No, you must judge those who are inside the church, for yourselves;

Do you not know the saints are to manage the world? If the world is to come under your jurisdiction, are you incompetent to adjudicate upon trifles?

Do you not know we are to manage angels, let alone mundane issues?

And yet, when you have mundane issues to settle, you refer them to the judgment of men who from the point of view of the church are of no account!

What! do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the Realm of God? Make no mistake about it; neither the immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor catamites nor sodomites

Do you not know your bodies are members of Christ? Am I to take Christ's members and devote them to a harlot? Never!

Do you not know that he who joins himself to a harlot is one with her in body (for the pair, it is said, shall become one flesh),

Do you not know your body is the temple of the holy Spirit within you ??the Spirit you have received from God? You are not your own,

Now about the questions in your letter. It is an excellent thing for a man to have no intercourse with a woman;

O wife, how do you know you may not save your husband? O husband, how do you know you may not save your wife?

I have no orders from the Lord for unmarried women, but I will give you the opinion of one whom you can trust, after all the Lord's mercy to him.

Of course, if you are actually married, there is no sin in that; and if a maid marries, there is no sin in that. (At the same time those who marry will have outward trouble ??and I would spare you that.)

let mourners live as if they were not mourning, let the joyful live as if they had no joy, let buyers live as if they had no hold on their goods,

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.

Well then, with regard to food that has been offered to idols, I am quite aware that 'there is no such thing as an idol in the world' and that 'there is only the one God.'

Now mere food will not bring us any nearer to God; if we abstain we do not lose anything, and if we eat we do not gain anything.

To other people I may be no apostle, but to you I am, for you are the seal set upon my apostleship in the Lord.

Have we no right to eat and drink at the expense of the churches?

Have we no right to travel with a Christian wife, like the rest of the apostles, like the brothers of the Lord, like Cephas himself?

Does a soldier provide his own supplies? Does a man plant a vineyard without eating its produce? Does a shepherd get no drink from the milk of the flock?

If others share this right over you, why not we all the more? We did not avail ourselves of it, you say? No, we do not mind any privations if we can only avoid putting any obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.

Do you not know that as men who perform temple-rites get their food from the temple, and as attendants at the altar get their share of the sacrifices,

I get a reward if I do it of my own accord, whereas to do it otherwise is no more than for a steward to discharge his trust.

Do you not know that in a race, though all run, only one man gains the prize? Run so as to win the prize.

Well, I run without swerving; I do not plant my blows upon the empty air ??27 no, I maul and master my body, in case, after preaching to other people, I am disqualified myself.

For I would have you know this, my brothers, that while our fathers all lived under the cloud, all crossed through the sea,

Now this took place as a warning for us, to keep us from craving for evil as they craved.

No temptation has waylaid you that is beyond man's power; trust God, he will never let you be tempted beyond what you can stand, but when temptation comes, he will provide the way out of it, so that you can bear up under it.

No, what I imply is that anything people sacrifice is sacrificed to daemons, not to God. And I do not want you to participate in daemons!

Put no stumbling-block in the way of Jews or Greeks or the church of God.

while any woman who prays or prophesies without a veil on her head dishonours her head; she is no better than a shaven woman.

for as woman was made from man, so man is now made from woman, while both, like all things, come from God.)

If anyone presumes to raise objections on this point ??well, I acknowledge no other mode of worship, and neither do the churches of God.

What! have you no houses to eat and drink in? Do you think you can show disrespect to the church of God and put the poor to shame? What can I say to you? Commend you? Not for this.

In the same way he took the cup after supper, saying, 'This cup means the new covenant ratified by my blood; as often as you drink it, do it in memory of me.'

You know when you were pagans, how your impulses led you to dumb idols;

so I tell you now, that no one is speaking in the Spirit of God when he cries, 'Cursed be Jesus,' and that no one can say, 'Jesus is Lord,' except in the holy Spirit.

If the foot were to say, 'Because I am not the hand, I do not belong to the body,' that does not make it no part of the body.

If the ear were to say, 'Because I am not the eye, I do not belong to the body,' that does not make it no part of the body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you,' nor again the head to the feet, 'I have no need of you.'

so that there may be no disunion in the body, but that the various members should have a common concern for one another.

Now you are Christ's Body, and severally members of it.

Thus, I may speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but if I have no love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal;

I may prophesy, fathom all mysteries and secret lore, I may have such absolute faith that I can move hills from their place, but if I have no love, I count for nothing;

I may distribute all I possess in charity, I may give up my body to be burnt, but if I have no love, I make nothing of it.

Love is very patient, very kind. Love knows no jealousy; love makes no parade, gives itself no airs,

For we only know bit by bit, and we only prophesy bit by bit;

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I argued like a child; now that I am a man, I am done with childish ways.

For he who speaks in a 'tongue' addresses God not men; no one understands him; he is talking of divine secrets in the Spirit.

Now I would like you all to speak with 'tongues,' but I would prefer you to prophesy. The man who prophesies is higher than the man who speaks with 'tongues' ??unless indeed the latter interprets, so that the church may get edification.

Suppose now I were to come to you speaking with 'tongues,' my brothers; what good could I do you, unless I had some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching to lay before you?

Inanimate instruments, such as the flute or the harp, may give a sound, but if no intervals occur in their music, how can one make out the air that is being played either on flute or on harp?

For if I pray with a 'tongue,' my spirit prays, no doubt, but my mind is no use to anyone.

if there is no interpreter, let the speaker keep quiet in church and address himself and God.

Now, brothers, I would have you know the gospel I once preached to you, the gospel you received, the gospel in which you have your footing,

But by God's grace I am what I am. The grace he showed me did not go for nothing; no, I have done far more work than all of them ??though it was not I but God's grace at my side.

Now if we preach that Christ rose from the dead, how can certain individuals among you assert that 'there is no such thing as a resurrection of the dead'?

If 'there is no such thing as a resurrection from the dead,' then even Christ did not rise;

Otherwise, if there is no such thing as a resurrection, what is the meaning of people getting baptized on behalf of their dead? If dead men do not rise at all, why do people get baptized on their behalf?

Make no mistake about this: 'bad company is the ruin of good character.'

So let no one disparage him. When he leaves to rejoin me, speed him cordially on his journey, for I am expecting him along with the other brothers.

I ask this favour of you, my brothers. The household of Stephanas, you know, was the first to be reaped in Achaia, and they have laid themselves out to serve the saints.

'If any one has no love for the Lord, God's curse be on him! Maran atha!