I thank my God continually on your behalf for the grace of God bestowed on you in Christ Jesus--

so that there is no gift of God in which you consciously come short while patiently waiting for the reappearing of our Lord Jesus Christ,

who will also keep you stedfast to the very End, so that you will be free from reproach on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For I have been distinctly informed, my brethren, about you by Chloe's people, that there are dissensions among you.

for fear people should say that you were baptized to be my adherents.

For the Message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are on the way to perdition, but it is the power of God to those whom He is saving.

For so it stands written, "I will exhibit the nothingness of the wisdom of the wise, and the intelligence of the intelligent I will bring to nought."

For after the world by its wisdom--as God in His wisdom had ordained--had failed to gain the knowledge of God, God was pleased, by the apparent foolishness of the Message which we preach, to save those who accepted it.

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 you--and it is all God's doing--are in Christ Jesus: He has become for us a wisdom which is from God, consisting of righteousness and sanctification and deliverance;

And as for myself, brethren, when I came to you, it was not with surpassing power of eloquence or earthly wisdom that I came, announcing to you that which God had commanded me to bear witness to.

For I determined to be utterly ignorant, when among you, of everything except of Jesus Christ, and of Him as having been crucified.

And so far as I myself was concerned, I came to you in conscious feebleness and in fear and in deep anxiety.

a wisdom which not one of the leaders of the present age possesses, for if they had possessed it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory.

But--to use the words of Scripture--we speak of things which eye has not seen nor ear heard, and which have never entered the heart of man: all that God has in readiness for them that love Him.

For us, however, God has drawn aside the veil through the teaching of the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, including the depths of the divine nature.

For, among human beings, who knows a man's inner thoughts except the man's own spirit within him? In the same way, also, only God's Spirit is acquainted with God's inner thoughts.

For who has penetrated the mind of the Lord, and will instruct Him? But *we* have the mind of Christ.

And as for myself, brethren, I found it impossible to speak to you as spiritual men. It had to be as to worldlings--mere babes in Christ.

I fed you with milk and not with solid food, since for this you were not yet strong enough. And even now you are not strong enough:

you are still unspiritual. For so long as jealousy and strife continue among you, can it be denied that you are unspiritual and are living and acting like mere men of the world?

For when some one says, "I belong to Paul," and another says, "I belong to Apollos," is not this the way men of the world speak?

Apollos and I are simply fellow workers for and with God, and you are *God's* field-- *God's* building.

For no one can lay any other foundation in addition to that which is already laid, namely Jesus Christ.

the true character of each individual's work will become manifest. For the day of Christ will disclose it, because that day is soon to come upon us clothed in fire, and as for the quality of every one's work-- the fire is the thing which will test it.

If any one's work is burnt up, he will suffer the loss of it; yet he will himself be rescued, but only, as it were, by passing through the fire.

If any one is marring the Sanctuary of God, him will God mar; for the Sanctuary of God is holy, which you all are.

This world's wisdom is "foolishness" in God's sight; for it is written, "He snares the wise with their own cunning."

For everything belongs to you--be it Paul or Apollos or Peter, the world or life or death, things present or future--everything belongs to you;

As for us Apostles, let any one take this view of us--we are Christ's officers, and stewards of God's secret truths.

Though I am not conscious of having been in any way unfaithful, yet I do not for that reason stand acquitted; but He whose scrutiny I must undergo is the Lord.

In writing this much, brethren, with special reference to Apollos and myself, I have done so for your sakes, in order to teach you by our example what those words mean, which say, "Nothing beyond what is written!" --so that you may cease to take sides in boastful rivalry, for one teacher against another.

Every one of you already has all that heart can desire; already you have grown rich; without waiting for us, you have ascended your thrones! Yes indeed, would to God that you had ascended your thrones, that we also might reign with you!

God, it seems to me, has exhibited us Apostles last of all, as men condemned to death; for we have come to be a spectacle to all creation--alike to angels and to men.

We, for Christ's sake, are labeled as "foolish"; you, as Christians, are men of shrewd intelligence. We are mere weaklings: you are strong. You are in high repute: we are outcasts.

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 reason I have sent Timothy to you. Spiritually he is my dearly-loved and faithful child. He will remind you of my habits as a Christian teacher--the manner in which I teach everywhere in every Church.

For Apostolic authority is not a thing of words, but of power.

I for my part, present with you in spirit although absent in body, have already, as though I were present, judged him who has so acted.

I have handed over such a man to Satan for the destruction of his body, that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord Jesus.

Get rid of the old yeast so that you may be dough of a new kind; for in fact you *are* free from corruption. For our Passover Lamb has already been offered in sacrifice--even Christ.

Therefore let us keep our festival not with old yeast nor with the yeast of what is evil and mischievous, but with bread free from yeast--the bread of transparent sincerity and of truth.

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.

For what business of mine is it to judge outsiders? Is it not for you to judge those who are within the Church

And all this describes what some of you were. But now you have had every stain washed off: now you have been set apart as holy: now you have been pronounced free from guilt; in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and through the Spirit of our God.

Food of all kinds is meant for the stomach, and the stomach is meant for food, and God will cause both of them to perish. Yet the body does not exist for the purpose of fornication, but for the Master's service, and the Master exists for the body;

Or do you not know that a man who has to do with a prostitute is one with her in body? For God says, "The two shall become one."

And you are not your own, for you have been redeemed at infinite cost. Therefore glorify God in your bodies.

I now deal with the subjects mentioned in your letter. It is well for a man to abstain altogether from marriage.

Do not refuse one another, unless perhaps it is just for a time and by mutual consent, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer and may then associate again; lest the Adversary begin to tempt you because of your deficiency in self-control.

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

If, however, they cannot maintain self-control, by all means let them marry; for marriage is better than the fever of passion.

For, in such cases, the unbelieving husband has become--and is--holy through union with a Christian woman, and the unbelieving wife is holy through union with a Christian brother. Otherwise your children would be unholy, but in reality they have a place among God's people.

For what assurance have you, O woman, as to whether you will save your husband? Or what assurance have you, O man, as to whether you will save your wife?

For a Christian, if he was a slave when called, is the Lord's freed man, and in the same way a free man, if called, becomes the slave of Christ.

I think then that, taking into consideration the distress which is now upon us, it is well for a man to remain as he is.

Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to get free. Are you free from the marriage bond? Do not seek for a wife.

Yet if you marry, you have not sinned; and if a maiden marries, she has not sinned. Such people, however, will have outward trouble. But I am for sparing you.

and those who use the world as not using it to the full. For the world as it now exists is passing away.

And I would have you free from worldly anxiety. An unmarried man concerns himself with the Lord's business--how he shall please the Lord;

Thus much I say in your own interest; not to lay a trap for you, but to help towards what is becoming, and enable you to wait on the Lord without distraction.

But if a father stands firm in his resolve, being free from all external constraint and having a legal right to act as he pleases, and in his own mind has come to the decision to keep his daughter unmarried, he will do well.

For if so-called gods do exist, either in Heaven or on earth--and in fact there are many such gods and many such lords--

yet *we* have but one God, the Father, who is the source of all things and for whose service we exist, and but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom we and all things exist.

For if any one were to see you, who know the real truth of this matter, reclining at table in an idol's temple, would not his conscience (supposing him to be a weak believer)

Why, your knowledge becomes the ruin of the weak believer--your brother, for whom Christ died!

Therefore if what I eat causes my brother to fall, never again to the end of my days will I touch any kind of animal food, for fear I should cause my brother to fall.

Am I not free? Am I not an Apostle? Can it be denied that I have seen Jesus, our Lord? Are not you yourselves my work in the Lord?

If to other men I am not an Apostle, yet at any rate I am one to you; for your very existence as a Christian Church is the seal of my Apostleship.

For in the Law of Moses it is written, "Thou shalt not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain."

But I, for my part, have not used, and do not use, my full rights in any of these things. Nor do I now write with that object so far as I myself am concerned, for I would rather die than have anybody make this boast of mine an empty one.

If I go on preaching the Good News, that is nothing for me to boast of; for the necessity is imposed upon me; and alas for me, if I fail to preach it!

Though free from all human control, I have made myself the slave of all in the hope of winning as many converts as possible.

And I do everything for the sake of the Good News, that I may share with my hearers in its benefits.

But every competitor in an athletic contest practices abstemiousness in all directions. They indeed do this for the sake of securing a perishable wreath, but we for the sake of securing one that will not perish.

For I would have you remember, brethren, how our forefathers were all of them sheltered by the cloud, and all got safely through the Red Sea.

and all drank the same spiritual drink; for they long drank the water that flowed from the spiritual rock that went with them--and that rock was the Christ.

But with most of them God was not well pleased; for they were laid low in the Desert.

And you must not be worshippers of idols, as some of them were. For it is written, "The People sat down to eat and drink, and stood up to dance."

And do not let us test the Lord too far, as some of them tested Him and were destroyed by the serpents.

I speak as to men of sense: judge for yourselves of what I say.

Let no one be for ever seeking his own good, but let each seek that of his fellow man.

Anything that is for sale in the meat market, eat, and ask no questions for conscience' sake;

for the earth is the Lord's, and all that it contains.

If an unbeliever gives you an invitation and you are disposed to accept it, eat whatever is put before you, and ask no questions for conscience' sake.

But if any one tells you, "This food has been offered in sacrifice;" abstain from eating it--out of respect for him who warned you, and, as before, for conscience' sake.

If, so far as I am concerned, I partake with a grateful heart, why am I to be found fault with in regard to a thing for which I give thanks?"

Be imitators of me, in so far as I in turn am an imitator of Christ.

Now I commend you for remembering me in everything, and because you hold fast truths and practices precisely as I have taught them to you.

but a woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her Head, for it is exactly the same as if she had her hair cut short.

For a man ought not to have a veil on his head, since he is the image and glory of God; while woman is the glory of man.

For man was not created for woman's sake, but woman for man's.

For just as woman originates from man, so also man comes into existence through woman, but everything springs originally from God.

Judge of this for your own selves: is it seemly for a woman to pray to God when she is unveiled?

but that if a woman has long hair it is her glory, because her hair was given her for a covering?

for, in the first place, when you meet as a Church, there are divisions among you. This is what I am told, and I believe that there is some truth in it.

For there must of necessity be differences of opinion among you, in order that it may be plainly seen who are the men of sterling worth among you.

for it is his own supper of which each of you is in a hurry to partake, and one eats like a hungry man, while another has already drunk to excess.

Why, have you no homes in which to eat and drink? Or do you wish to show your contempt for the Church of God and make those who have no homes feel ashamed? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this matter I certainly do not praise you.

For it was from the Lord that I received the facts which, in turn, I handed on to you; how that the Lord Jesus, on the night He was to be betrayed, took some bread,