to the church of God at Corinth, to those who are consecrated by union with Christ Jesus, and called as God's people, like all those anywhere who call on the name of Jesus Christ, their Lord as well as ours;

So your experience has confirmed the testimony that I bore to Christ,

But I urge you all, brothers, for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, to agree in what you say, and not to allow factions among you, but to be perfectly united in mind and judgment.

For I have been informed, my brothers, by Chloe's people, that quarrels are going on among you.

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

Where now is your philosopher? Your scribe? Your reasoner of today? Has not God made a fool of the world's wisdom?

For since in God's providence the world with all its wisdom did not come to know God, God chose, through the folly of the gospel message, to save those who had faith in him.

but to those whom God has called, whether they are Jews or Greeks, a Christ who is God's power and God's wisdom.

For God's folly is beyond the wisdom of men, and God's weakness is beyond their strength.

so that in his presence no human being might have anything to boast of.

so that, as the Scripture says, "Let him who would boast, boast of the Lord!"

So when I came to you, brothers, I did not come and tell you the secret purpose of God in superior, philosophical language,

so that your faith might rest, not on human philosophy, but on the power of God.

Yet there is a wisdom that we impart when we are with people who have a mature faith, but it is not what this world calls wisdom, nor what the authorities of this world, doomed as they are to pass away, would call so.

But, as the Scripture says, there are things "Which no eye ever saw and no ear ever heard, And never occurred to the human mind, Which God has provided for those who love him."

For what human being can understand a man's thoughts except the man's own spirit within him? Just so no one understands the thoughts of God but the spirit of God.

A material man will not accept what the Spirit of God offers. It seems mere folly to him, and he cannot understand it, because it takes spiritual insight to see its true value.

But the spiritual man is alive to all true values, but his own true value no unspiritual man can see.

For who has ever known the Lord's thoughts, so that he can instruct him? But we share the thoughts of Christ.

So, for my part, brothers, I could not treat you as spiritual persons; I had to treat you just as creatures of flesh and blood, as babies in Christian living.

So neither the planter nor the waterer counts for anything, but only God who makes the plants grow.

For we are fellow-laborers for God, and you are God's farm, God's building.

Like an expert builder, I laid a foundation, as God commissioned me to do, and now someone else is building upon it. But let everyone be careful how he does so.

the quality of everyone's work will appear, for the Day will show it. For the Day will break in fire, and the fire will test the quality of everyone's work.

If a man's work is burned up, he must stand the loss, though he himself will be saved, but as one who has passed through the fire.

Do you know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit makes its home in you?

Let no one of you deceive himself. If any one of you imagines that he is wiser than the rest of you, in what this world calls wisdom, he had better become a fool, so as to become really wise.

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

So no one should boast about men. For it all belongs to you??22 Paul, Apollos, Cephas, the world, life, death, the present, the future??ll of it belongs to you.

The right way for a man to think of us is as Christ's servants, and managers authorized to distribute the secret truths of God.

Do not form any premature judgments, therefore, but wait until the Lord comes back. For he will light up the darkness that now hides things and show what the motives in people's minds are, and then everyone will get from God the praise he deserves.

Are you satisfied already? Have you become rich already? Have you entered your kingdom without waiting for us? I wish you had entered it, so that we might share it with you!

when they slander us, we try to conciliate them. We have come to be like the scum of the earth, the dregs of the world, and we are so now.

So I urge you, follow my example.

But I am coming very soon to see you, if the Lord is willing, and then I will find out, not what these conceited people have to say, but what they can actually do.

Immorality is actually notorious among you, and immorality of a kind unknown even among the heathen??hat a man has taken his father's wife.

So let us keep the festival, not with old yeast nor with the yeast of vice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of purity and truth.

and God's, to judge those who are outside? You must drive the wrongdoer out from among you.

Do you not know that we are to be the judges of angels, to say nothing of ordinary matters?

Do you not know that wrongdoers will not have any share in God's kingdom? Do not let anyone mislead you. People who are immoral or idolaters or adulterers or sensual or given to unnatural vice

or thieves or greedy??runkards, abusive people, robbers??ill not have any share in God's kingdom.

Do you not know that your bodies are parts of Christ's body? Am I then to take away from Christ parts of his body, and make them parts of a prostitute's? Never!

But there is so much immorality that every man had better have a wife of his own, and every woman a husband of her own.

A wife cannot do as she likes with her own person; it is her husband's; and in the same way a husband cannot do as he likes with his own person; it is his wife's.

You must not refuse each other what is due, unless you agree to do so for a while, to devote yourselves to prayer, and then to come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you through your lack of self-control.

To all who are unmarried and to widows, I would say this: It is an excellent thing if they can remain single as I am.

To those already married my instructions are??nd they are not mine, but the Lord's??hat a wife is not to separate from her husband.

To other people I would say, though not as Christ's command, if a Christian has a wife who is not a believer, and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her,

Only, everyone must continue in the station which the Lord has appointed for him, and in which he was when God's call came to him. This is the rule I make in all the churches.

Being circumcised or being uncircumcised does not make any difference; all that matters is keeping God's commands.

About unmarried women I have no command of the Lord to give you, but I will give you my opinion as that of one on whom through the Lord's mercy you can depend.

But this I do say, brothers. The appointed time has grown very short. From this time on those who have wives should live as though they had none,

I want you to be free from all anxiety. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord's work, and how he can please the Lord.

A married man is concerned about worldly affairs, and how he can please his wife, and so his interests are divided.

An unmarried woman or a girl is concerned about the Lord's work, so as to be consecrated in body and spirit, but the woman who marries is concerned with worldly affairs, and how she can please her husband.

It is for your benefit that I say this, not to put a halter on you, but to promote good order, and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.

So the man who marries her does what is right, and the man who refrains from doing so does even better.

A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. If her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she pleases so long as he is a Christian.

But she will be happier, in my judgment, if she remains as she is, and I think I have God's spirit as well as other people.

About food that has been offered to idols, it is true, as you say, that we all have some knowledge on that matter. Knowledge gives people airs; love is what builds up character.

For supposing there are so-called gods in heaven or on earth??nd indeed there are plenty of such gods and lords??6 yet for us there is just one God, the Father, who is the source of all things, and for whom we live, and just one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom everything was made and through whom we live.

For if somebody sees you, who are intelligent about this matter, attending a dinner in an idol's temple, will not he, with his sensitive conscience, be led to eat meat that is offered to idols?

Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not the product of my work in the Lord's service?

Have we not a right to take a Christian wife about with us, like the rest of the apostles and the Lord's brothers and Cephas?

Am I saying only what men say? Does not the Law say so too?

If others enjoy such rights over you, have we not a still better claim? But, you say, we have never availed ourselves of this right. No, we will stand anything rather than put any hindrance in the way of the good news of the Christ.

But I have not availed myself of any of these rights. And I am not writing this now so that I may become an illustration of this; I had rather die than do that. No one shall deprive me of this boast of mine.

What pay then do I get? Why, that in my preaching I can offer the good news without cost, and so not take full advantage of my rights as a preacher.

Though I am free from anyone's control, I have made myself everyone's slave, so as to win over all the more.

To the Jews I have become like a Jew, to win Jews over; to men under the Law I have become like a man under the Law, though I am not myself under the Law, so as to win over those who are under the Law.

To the overscrupulous I have become overscrupulous, so as to win the overscrupulous; I have become everything to everybody, so as by all means to save some of them.

And I do it all for the sake of the good news, so that I may share in its blessings along with the rest.

Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one wins the prize? That is the way you must run, so as to win.

So that is the way I run, unswervingly. That is the way I fight, not punching the air.

But I beat and bruise my body and make it my slave, so that after I have called others to the contest I may not be disqualified myself.

For I would not have you forget, brothers, that though our forefathers were all protected by the cloud, and all passed safely through the sea,

and in the cloud and the sea all, as it were, accepted baptism as followers of Moses,

Now these things happened to warn us, so that we should not long for what is evil as they did.

Let us not try the Lord's patience too far, as some of them did, for they were killed for it by the snakes.

So the man who thinks he can stand must be on his guard against a fall.

It is no superhuman temptation that you have had. And God can be depended on, not to let you be tried beyond your strength, but when temptation comes, to give you a way out of it, so that you can withstand it.

I appeal to your good sense. Make up your minds about what I say.

his scruples, I say, not yours. For why should my liberty of action be limited by another's scruples?

So whether you are eating or drinking or doing anything else, do it all to the honor of God.

You must follow my example in this, as I am following Christ's.

But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, while a woman's head is her husband, and Christ's head is God.

For a man ought not to wear anything on his head, for he is the image of God and reflects his glory; while woman is the reflection of man's glory.

but a woman's long hair is her pride? For her hair is given her as a covering.

So when you hold your meetings it is not the Lord's Supper that you eat,

Have you no houses to eat and drink in? Or do you mean to show your contempt for the church of God, and to humiliate those who have none? What can I say to you? Can I approve of you? Not in this matter certainly.

He took the cup, too, after supper, in the same way, saying, "This cup is the new agreement ratified by my blood. Whenever you drink it, do so in memory of me."

Hence anyone who eats the bread or drinks from the Lord's cup in a way that is unworthy of it will be guilty of profaning the body and the blood of the Lord.

A man should examine himself, and only when he has done so should he eat any of the bread or drink from the cup.

But since we do incur it, we are disciplined by the Lord, so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

So, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.

If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, so that your meetings may not bring down a judgment upon you. The details I will settle when I come.

Therefore, I must tell you that no one who is speaking under the influence of the Spirit of God ever says, "Curse Jesus!" and no one can say, "Jesus is Lord!" without being under the influence of the holy Spirit.

For just as the body is one and yet has many parts, and all the parts of the body, many as they are, form one body, so it is with Christ.

The eye cannot say to the hand, "I do not need you," or the head to the feet, "I do not need you."

which our presentable parts do not need. God has so adjusted the body and given such especial distinction to its inferior parts