From: Paul, called to be an apostle of the Messiah Jesus by the will of God, and from our brother Sosthenes.

May grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus, the Messiah, be yours!

It is because of God that you are in union with the Messiah Jesus, who for us has become wisdom from God, as well as our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.

Now, we have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who comes from God, so that we can understand the things that were freely given to us by God.

Therefore, stop judging prematurely, before the Lord comes, for he will bring to light what is now hidden in darkness and reveal the motives of our hearts. Then each person will receive his praise from God.

Brothers, I have applied all this to Apollos and myself for your benefit, so that you may learn from us not to go beyond what the Scriptures say. Then you will stop boasting about one person at the expense of another.

We wear ourselves out from working with our own hands. When insulted, we bless. When persecuted, we endure.

And you are being arrogant instead of being filled with grief and seeing to it that the man who did this is removed from among you.

Even though I am away from you physically, I am with you in spirit. I have already passed judgment on the man who did this, as though I were present with you.

Get rid of the old yeast so that you may be a new batch of dough, since you are to be free from yeast. For the Messiah, our Passover, has been sacrificed.

Keep on running away from sexual immorality. Any other sin that a person commits is outside his body, but the person who sins sexually sins against his own body.

You know that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God, don't you? You do not belong to yourselves,

Do not withhold yourselves from each other unless you agree to do so just for a set time, in order to devote yourselves to prayer. Then you should come together again so that Satan does not tempt you through your lack of self-control.

I would like everyone to be unmarried, like I am. However, each person has a special gift from God, one this and another that.

Now concerning virgins, although I do not have any command from the Lord, I will give you my opinion as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy.

Have you become committed to a wife? Stop trying to get released from your commitment. Have you been freed from your commitment to a wife? Stop looking for one.

But if you do get married, you have not sinned. And if a virgin gets married, she has not sinned. However, these people will experience trouble in this life, and I want to spare you from that.

This is what I mean, brothers: The time is short. From now on, those who have wives should live as though they had none,

and those who use the things in the world as though they were not dependent on them. For the world in its present form is passing away.

I want you to be free from concerns. An unmarried man is concerned about the things of the Lord, that is, about how he can please the Lord.

However, if a man stands firm in his resolve, feels no necessity, and has made up his mind to keep her a virgin, he will be acting appropriately.

So then the man who marries the virgin acts appropriately, but the man who refrains from marriage does even better.

yet for us there is only one God, the Father, from whom everything came into being and for whom we live. And there is only one Lord, Jesus the Messiah, through whom everything came into being and through whom we live.

Therefore, if food that I eat causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, in order to keep my brother from stumbling.

If I am not an apostle to other people, surely I am one to you, for you are the evidence of my apostolic authority from the Lord.

If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap material benefits from you?

You know that those who work in the Temple get their food from the Temple and that those who serve at the altar get their share of its offerings, don't you?

In the same way, the Lord has ordered that those who proclaim the gospel should make their living from the gospel.

Although I am free from everyone's expectations, I have made myself a servant to all of them to win more people.

To those who do not have the Law, I became like a man who does not have the Law in order to win those who do not have the Law. However, I am not free from God's Law, but I'm subject to the Messiah's law.

and drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that went with them. That rock was the Messiah.

And so, my dear friends, keep on running away from idolatry.

Because there is one loaf, we who are many are one body, because all of us eat from the same loaf.

Look at the Israelis from a human point of view. Those who eat the sacrifices share in what is on the altar, don't they?

For man did not come from woman, but woman from man;

For as woman came from man, so man comes through woman. But everything comes from God.

For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you how the Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took a loaf of bread,

He did the same with the cup after the supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. As often as you drink from it, keep doing this in memory of me."

For as often as you eat this bread and drink from this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks from the cup in an unworthy manner will be held responsible for the Lord's body and blood.

A person must examine himself and then eat the bread and drink from the cup,

For just as the body is one and yet has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, form a single body, so it is with the Messiah.

For by one Spirit all of us Jews and Greeks, slaves and free were baptized into one body and were all privileged to drink from one Spirit.

If I have the gift of prophecy and can understand all secrets and every form of knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains but have no love, I am nothing.

Therefore, my brothers, desire the ability to prophesy, and do not prevent others from speaking in foreign languages.

Now if we preach that the Messiah has been raised from the dead, how can some of you keep claiming there is no resurrection of the dead?

But at this moment the Messiah stands risen from the dead, the first one offered in the harvest of those who have died.

If I have fought with wild animals in Ephesus from merely human motives, what do I get out of it? If the dead are not raised, "Let's eat and drink, for tomorrow we die."

and what you plant is not the form that it will be, but a bare kernel, whether it is wheat or something else.

But God gives the plant the form he wants it to have, and to each kind of seed its own form.

One kind of splendor belongs to the sun, another to the moon, and still another to the stars. In fact, one star differs from another star in splendor.

The first man came from the dust of the earth; the second man came from heaven.

Those who are made of the dust are like the man from the dust; those who are heavenly are like the man who is from heaven.

Just as we have borne the likeness of the man who was made from dust, we will also bear the likeness of the man from heaven.

After the Sabbath ends, each of you should set aside and save something from your surplus in proportion to what you have, so that no collections will have to be made when I arrive.

Remain alert. Keep standing firm in your faith. Keep on being courageous and strong.