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

To: God's church in Corinth, to those who have been sanctified by the Messiah Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah their Lord and ours.

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

I always thank my God for you because of the grace of God given you by the Messiah Jesus.

For by him you have become rich in every way in speech and knowledge of every kind

Therefore, you don't lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus the Messiah to be revealed.

He will keep you strong until the end, so that you will be blameless on the Day of our Lord Jesus the Messiah.

Faithful is the God by whom you were called into fellowship with his Son Jesus the Messiah, our Lord.

Brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus the Messiah, I urge all of you to be in agreement and not to have divisions among you, so that you may be perfectly united in your understanding and opinions.

For the Messiah did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, not with eloquent wisdom, so the cross of the Messiah won't be emptied of its power.

Brothers, think about your own calling. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.

My message and my preaching were not accompanied by clever, wise words, but by a display of the Spirit's power,

so that your faith would not be based on human wisdom but on God's power.

But God has revealed those things to us by his Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the deep things of God.

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.

We don't speak about these things with words taught us by human wisdom, but with words taught by the Spirit, as we explain spiritual things to spiritual people.

That's because you are still worldly. As long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, you are worldly and living by human standards, aren't you?

As an expert builder using the grace that God gave me, I laid the foundation, and someone else is building on it. But each person must be careful how he builds on it.

the workmanship of each person will become evident, for the day of judgment will show what it is, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person's action.

If his work is burned up, he will suffer loss. However, he himself will be saved, but it will be like going through fire.

Now it is required of servant managers that each one should prove to be trustworthy.

It is a very small thing to me that I should be examined by you or by any human court. In fact, I don't even evaluate myself.

You already have all you want! You have already become rich! You have become kings without us! I wish you really were kings so that we could be kings with you!

turn this man over to Satan for the destruction of his body, so that his spirit may be saved on the Day of the Lord.

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.

You know that the saints will rule the world, don't you? And if the world is going to be ruled by you, can't you handle insignificant cases?

The very fact that you have lawsuits among yourselves is already a defeat for you. Why not rather just accept the wrong? Why not rather be cheated?

That is what some of you were! But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus the Messiah and by the Spirit of our God.

God raised the Lord, and by his power he will also raise us.

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

But if she does leave him, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. Likewise, a husband must not abandon his wife.

For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified because of her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but now they are holy.

Wife, you might be able to save your husband. Husband, you might be able to save your wife.

Brothers, everyone should stay in the same condition in which he was called by God.

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.

and those who mourn as though they did not mourn, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they did not own a thing,

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.

An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the affairs of the Lord, so that she may be holy in body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world, that is, about how she can please her husband. I'm saying this for your benefit, not to put a noose around your necks, but to promote good order and unhindered devotion to 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.

However, in my opinion she will be happier if she stays as she is. And in saying this, I think that I, too, have God's Spirit.

But anyone who loves God is known by him.

For if anyone with a weak conscience sees you, who know better, eating in an idol's temple, he will be encouraged to eat what has been offered to idols, won't he?

In that case, the weak brother for whom the Messiah died is ruined by your knowledge.

But I have not used any of these rights, and I'm not writing this so that they may be applied in my case. I would rather die than let anyone deprive me of my reason for boasting.

For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast about, for this obligation has been entrusted to me. How terrible it would be for me if I didn't preach the gospel!

What, then, is my reward? It is to be able to preach the gospel free of charge, and so I never resort to demanding my rights when I'm preaching the gospel.

To the weak I became weak in order to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some of them.

You know that in a race all the runners run but only one wins the prize, don't you? You must run in such a way that you may be victorious.

No, I keep on disciplining my body, making it serve me so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not somehow be disqualified.

Now I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the fact that all of our ancestors who left Egypt were under the cloud. They all went through the sea,

Let's stop putting the Lord to the test, as some of them were doing, and were destroyed by snakes.

You must stop complaining, as some of them were doing, and were annihilated by the destroyer.

No temptation has overtaken you that is unusual for human beings. But God is faithful, and he will not allow you to be tempted beyond your strength. Instead, along with the temptation he will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to endure it.

I mean, of course, his conscience, not yours. For why should my freedom be determined by someone else's conscience?

If I eat with thankfulness, why should I be denounced because of what I am thankful for?

just as I myself try to please everybody in every way. I don't look out for my own benefit, but rather for the benefit of many people, so that they might be saved.

Of course, there must be factions among you to show which of you are genuine!

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.

But if we judged ourselves correctly, we would not be judged.

Now, while we are being judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so we won't be condemned along with the world.

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I don't want you to be ignorant.

For this reason I want you to be aware that no one who is speaking by God's Spirit can say, "Jesus is cursed," and no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit.

To one has been given a message of wisdom by the Spirit; to another the ability to speak with knowledge according to the same Spirit;

to another faith by the same Spirit; to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit;

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 the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?

Now if all of it were one part, there wouldn't be a body, would there?

On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are in fact indispensable,

so that there might be no disharmony in the body, but that its parts should have the same concern for each other.

Love never fails. Now if there are prophecies, they will be done away with. If there are languages, they will cease. If there is knowledge, it will be done away with.

But when what is complete comes, then what is incomplete will be done away with.

Now we see only an indistinct image in a mirror, but then we will be face to face. Now what I know is incomplete, but then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

For the person who speaks in a foreign language is not actually speaking to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands him, because he is talking about secrets by the Spirit.

Now I wish that all of you could speak in foreign languages, but especially that you could prophesy. The person who prophesies is more important than the person who speaks in a foreign language, unless he interprets it so that the church may be built up.

Indeed, brothers, if I come to you speaking in foreign languages, what good will I be to you unless I speak to you in some revelation, knowledge, prophecy, or teaching?

In the same way, unless you speak an intelligible message with your language, how will anyone know what is being said? You'll be talking into the air!

If I don't know the meaning of the language, I will be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker will be a foreigner to me.

Brothers, stop being childish in your thinking. Be like infants with respect to evil, but think like adults.

In the Law it is written, "By means of foreign languages and through the mouths of foreigners I will speak to this people, but even then they will not listen to me," declares the Lord.

Foreign languages, then, are meant to be a sign, not for believers, but for unbelievers, while prophecy is meant, not for unbelievers, but for believers.

But if everyone is prophesying, when an unbeliever or an uneducated person comes in he will be convicted and examined by everything that's happening.

His secret, inner heart will become known, and so he will bow down to the ground and worship God, declaring, "God is truly among you!"

What, then, does this mean, brothers? When you gather, everyone has a psalm, teaching, revelation, foreign language, or interpretation. Everything must be done for upbuilding.

If a revelation is made to another person who is seated, the first person should be silent.

For everyone can prophesy in turn, so that everyone can be instructed and everyone can be encouraged.

But if anyone ignores this, he should be ignored.

But everything must be done in a proper and orderly way.

and by which you are also being saved if you hold firmly to the message I proclaimed to you unless, of course, your faith was worthless.

and he was seen by Cephas, and then by the Twelve.

After that, he was seen by more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died.

Next he was seen by James, then by all the apostles,

and finally he was seen by me, as though I were born abnormally late.

For I am the least of the apostles and not even fit to be called an apostle because I persecuted God's church.

But by God's grace I am what I am, and his grace shown to me was not wasted. Instead, I worked harder than all the others not I, of course, but God's grace that was with me.

In addition, we are found to be false witnesses about God because we testified on God's behalf that he raised the Messiah whom he did not raise if in fact it is true that the dead are not raised.

and if the Messiah has not been raised, your faith is worthless and you are still imprisoned by your sins.

For as in Adam all die, so also in the Messiah will all be made alive.

The last enemy to be done away with is death,

But when everything has been put under him, then the Son himself will also become subject to the one who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.

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