Paul, by the will of God called as an apostle of Jesus Christ, and our brother Sosthenes,

to the church of God at Corinth, to those who are consecrated by union with Christ Jesus, and called to be God's people, in fellowship with those who anywhere call upon the name of Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:

spiritual blessing and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

I am always thanking God for you, for the spiritual blessing given you by God through union with Christ Jesus;

God is entirely trustworthy, and it is He through whom you have been called into this fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the good news -- but not by means of wisdom and rhetoric, so that the cross of Christ may not be emptied of its power.

For the message of the cross is nonsense to those who are in the process of being destroyed, but it is the power of God to those who are in the process of being saved.

So where is your philosopher? Where is your man of letters? Where is your logician of this age? Has not God shown up the nonsense of the world's wisdom?

For since in accordance with the wisdom of God the world had never in reality, by means of its wisdom, come to know God, God chose through the nonsense of the message proclaimed, to save the people who put their faith in Him.

but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks alike, the Christ who is God's power and God's wisdom.

It is so, because God's nonsense is wiser than men's wisdom, and God's weakness is mightier than men's might.

For consider, brothers, the way God called you; that not many of you, in accordance with human standards, were wise, not many influential, not many of high birth.

Just the opposite: God chose what the world calls foolish to put the wise to shame, what the world calls weak to put the strong to shame,

what the world calls of low degree, yea, what it counts as nothing and what it thinks does not exist, God chose to put a stop to what it thinks exists,

so that no mortal man might ever boast in the presence of God.

So you owe it all to Him through union with Christ Jesus, whom God has made our wisdom, our means of right standing, our consecration, and our redemption,

Now when I came to you, brothers, I did not come and tell you God's uncovered secret in rhetorical language or human philosophy,

so that your faith might not be in men's wisdom, but in God's power.

rather, we are setting forth a wisdom that came from God, once a covered secret but now uncovered, which God marked off as His plan for bringing us to glory.

But, as the Scripture says, they are: "Things which eye has never seen and ear has never heard, and never have occurred to human hearts, which God prepared for those who love Him."

For God unveiled them to us through His Spirit, for the Spirit by searching discovers everything, even the deepest truths about God.

For what man can understand his own inner thoughts except by his own spirit within him? Just so no one but the Spirit of God can understand the thoughts of God.

Now we have not received the spirit that belongs to the world but the Spirit that comes from God, that we may get an insight into the blessings God has graciously given us.

An unspiritual man does not accept the things that the Spirit of God teaches, for they are nonsense to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are appreciated by spiritual insight.

I did the planting, Apollos did the watering, but it was God who kept the plants growing.

So neither the planter nor the waterer counts for much, but God is everything in keeping the plants growing.

The planter and the waterer are one in aim, and yet each of us will get his own pay in accordance with his own work,

for we belong to God as His fellow-workers; you belong to God as His field to be tilled, as His building to be built.

As a skilled architect, in accordance with God's unmerited favor given to me, I laid a foundation, and now another is building upon it. But every builder must be careful how he builds upon it;

If the structure which one builds upon it stands the test, he will get his pay.

If the structure which one builds is burned up, he will get no pay; and yet he himself will be saved, but just as one who goes through a fire.

Are you not conscious that you are God's temple, and that the Spirit of God has His permanent home in you?

If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is sacred to Him, and you are that temple.

For this world's wisdom is mere nonsense to God. For the Scripture says, "He who catches the wise with their own cunning,"

Yes, you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

As for us apostles, men ought to think of us as ministers of Christ and trustees to handle God's uncovered truths.

For who makes you superior? And what do you have that you did not get from someone? But if you got it from someone, why do you boast as though you had not?

For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on exhibition at the disgraced end of the procession, as they do with men who are doomed to die in the arena.

For though you have ten thousand teachers in the Christian life, you certainly could not have many fathers. For it was I myself who became your father through your union with Christ Jesus, which resulted from my telling you the good news.

for the kingdom of God does not consist in talking but in doing.

Your ground for boasting about such a case is not good. Are you not aware that a little yeast will change the whole lump of dough?

not that you are to stop all dealings with sexually immoral people of this world, any more than with its greedy graspers, or its idolaters, for then you would have to get clear out of the world.

but for God to judge those who are outside? You must expel that wicked person from your membership.

When one of you has a grievance against his neighbor, does he dare to go to law before a heathen court, instead of laying the case before God's people?

Do you not know that God's people are to judge the world? And if the world is to be judged before you, are you unfit to try such petty cases?

Do you not know that wrongdoers will not have a share in the kingdom of God? Stop being misled; people who are sexually immoral or idolaters or adulterers or sensual or guilty of unnatural sexual vice

or thieves or greedy graspers for more or drunkards or slanderers or swindlers will not have a share in the kingdom of God.

And these are just the characters some of you used to be. But now you have washed yourselves clean, you have been consecrated, you are now in right standing with God, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God.

Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is good for me. Everything is permissible for me, but I will not become a slave to anything.

Foods are intended for the stomach, and the stomach for foods, but God will finally put a stop to both of them. The body is not intended for sexual immorality but for the service of the Lord, and the Lord is for the body to serve.

And as God by His power raised the Lord to life, so He will raise us too.

Or, are you not aware that a man who has to do with a prostitute makes his body one with hers? For God says, "The two shall be physically one."

Or, are you not conscious that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit that is in you, whom you have as a gift from God? Furthermore, you are not your own,

for you have been bought and actually paid for. So you must honor God with your bodies.

Now I take up the matters about which you wrote me. It may be good thing for a man to remain unmarried;

However, I should like for everyone to be just as I am myself, yet each of us has his own special gift from God, one for one way, another for another.

But if the unbelieving consort actually leaves, let the separation stand. In such cases the Christian husband or wife is not morally bound; God has called us to live in peace.

Only, everybody must continue to live in the station which the Lord assigned to him, in that in which God called him. These are my orders in all the churches.

Being circumcised or not being circumcised has no value, but keeping God's commands is important.

Brothers, each one must continue close to God in the very station in which he was called.

Now this is my opinion in the light of the present distress: That it is a good thing for a man to remain as he is.

Are you married? Stop trying to get a divorce. Are you unmarried? Stop looking for a wife.

But if you do get married, you have not sinned in doing so. And if a girl gets married, she has not sinned in doing so. But those who do will have trouble in their earthly life, and I am trying to spare you this.

I mean this, brothers. The time has been cut short. For the future, men who have wives should live as though they had none,

It is for your welfare that I am saying this, not to put restraint on you, but to foster good order and to help you to an undivided devotion to the Lord.

But in my opinion she will be happier, if she remains as she is, and I think too that I have God's Spirit.

But if a man loves God, God is known by him.

So, as to eating things that have been sacrificed to idols, we are sure that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no God but One.

yet for us there is but one God, the Father, who is the source of all things and the goal of our living, and but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom everything was made and through whom we live.

Food will never bring us near to God. We are no worse if we do not eat it; we are no better if we do.

For in the law of Moses it is written, "You must not muzzle an ox that is treading out your grain." Is it that God is concerned about oxen only?

If others share this right with you, have we not a stronger claim? Yet, we have never used this right; no, we keep on bearing everything, to keep from hindering the progress of the good news of Christ.

Do you not know that those who do the work about the temple get their living from the temple, and those who constantly attend on the altar share its offerings?

Just so the Lord has issued orders that those who preach the good news shall get their living out of it.

For if I do preach the good news, I have no ground for boasting of it, for I cannot help doing it. Yes, indeed, I am accursed if I do not preach the good news.

For if I do it of my own accord, I get my pay; but if I am unwilling to do it, I still am entrusted with trusteeship.

Then what is the pay that I am getting? To be able to preach the good news without expense to anybody, and so never to make full use of my rights in preaching the good news.

to men who have no written law, like one without any law, though I am not without God's law but specially under Christ's law, to win the men who have no written law.

And I do it all for the sake of the good news, so as to share with others in its blessings.

Do you not know that in a race the runners all run, but only one can get the prize? You must run in such a way that you can get the prize.

still with the most of them God was not at all satisfied, for He allowed them to be laid low in the desert.

Now stop being idolaters, as some of them were, for the Scripture says, "The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to dance."

No temptation has taken hold of you but what is common to human nature. And God is to be trusted not to let you be tempted beyond your strength, but when temptation comes, to make a way out of it, so that you can bear up under it.

I mean that what the heathen sacrifice they sacrifice to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be in fellowship with demons.

Everything is permissible for people, but not everything is good for them. Everything is permissible for people, but not everything builds up their personality.

So if you eat or drink or do anything else, do everything to honor God.

Stop being stumbling blocks to Jews or Greeks or to the church of God,

But I want you to realize the fact that Christ is the Head of every man, that the husband is the head of the wife, and that God is the Head of Christ.

For if a woman will not wear a veil, let her have her hair cut off too. Now if it is a dishonor for a woman to have her hair cut off, or her head shaved, let her wear a veil.

For a man ought not to wear anything on his head, because he is the image and reflected glory of God, but woman is man's reflected glory.

For just as woman originated from man, so man is born of woman, and both, with everything else, originated from God.

You must judge for yourselves in this matter. Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with nothing on her head?

But if anyone is inclined to be contentious about it, I for my part prescribe no other practice than this, and neither do the churches of God.

It is not that you have no houses to eat and drink in, is it? Or, are you trying to show your contempt for the church of God and trying to humiliate those who have no houses? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? No, I cannot praise you for this.

So I want to inform you that no one speaking under the power of the Spirit of God can say, "Jesus is accursed!" and no one except one under the power of the Holy Spirit can really say, "Jesus is Lord!"

there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who does all things by putting energy in us all.

To each of us is given a special spiritual illumination for the common good.

But as it now is, God has placed the parts, every one of them, in the body just as He wanted them to be.

while our well-shaped parts do not want for anything. Yes, God has perfectly adjusted the body, giving great honor to its apparently inferior parts,

And God has placed people in the church, first as apostles, second as prophets, third as teachers, then wonder-workers; then people with power to cure the sick, helpers, managers, ecstatic speakers.