so that there is no spiritual gift in which you consciously come short, while you are waiting for the unveiling of our Lord Jesus Christ,

and to the very end He will guarantee that you are vindicated at the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For I have been informed about you, my brothers, by Chloe's people, that there are wranglings among you.

I mean this, that one of you says, "I belong to Paul's party," another, "And I belong to Apollos' party," another, "And I belong to Cephas' party," another, "And I belong to Christ's party."

I am thankful that I baptized none of you but Crispus and Gaius,

so as to keep anyone from saying that you were baptized in my name.

Yes, I did baptize the family of Stephanas, too; I do not now recall that I baptized anyone else.

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.

we are preaching the Christ who was crucified -- a message that is a trap-stick to the Jews and nonsense to the Greeks,

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.

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

so that, as the Scripture says, "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."

Yes, as for myself, it was in weakness and fear and great trembling that I came to you,

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

Yet, when among mature believers we do set forth a wisdom, but a wisdom that does not belong to this world or to the leaders of this world who are passing away;

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.

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.

These truths we are setting forth, not in words that man's wisdom teaches but in words that the Spirit teaches, in this way fitting spiritual words to spiritual truths.

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.

For who has ever known the Lord's thoughts, so that he can instruct Him? But we now possess Christ's thoughts.

for no one can lay any other foundation than the one that is laid, that is, Jesus Christ Himself.

the character of each one's work will come to light, for the judgment day will show it up. This is so, because that day will show itself in fire, and the fire will test the character of each one's work.

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.

Let no one deceive himself. If any one of you supposes that he is wise in this world's wisdom, as compared with the rest of you, to become really wise he must become a fool.

and again, "The Lord knows that the arguings of the wise are useless."

Now in this matter of trustees the first and final requirement is that they should prove to be trustworthy.

For although my conscience does not accuse me, yet I am not entirely vindicated by that. It is the Lord Himself who must examine me.

Now, brothers, for your sakes I have applied all this to Apollos and myself, that from us as illustrations you might learn the lesson, "Never go beyond what is written," so that you might stop boasting in favor of one teacher against another.

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?

Are you satisfied already? Have you grown rich already? Have you ascended your thrones without us to join you? Yes, I could wish that you had ascended your thrones, that we too might join you on them!

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.

But some of you have become conceited over the thought that I am not coming to see you.

A case of immorality is reported as actually existing among you, an immorality unheard of even among the heathen that a man cohabits with his father's wife.

And yet, you are proud of it, instead of being sorry for it, and seeing to it that the man who has done this be removed from your membership!

to turn such a man as this over to Satan for the destruction of his lower nature, in order that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.

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?

You must clean out the old yeast, that you may be a fresh lump, as you are to be free from the old yeast. For our Passover Lamb, Christ, has already been sacrificed.

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.

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 we Christians are to sit in judgment on angels, to say nothing of the ordinary cases of life?

I ask this to make you blush with shame. Has it come to this, that there is not a single wise man among you who could settle a grievance of one brother against another,

but one brother has to go to law with another, and that before unbelieving judges?

On the contrary, you practice wronging and robbing others, and that your brothers.

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

Do you not know that your bodies are parts of Christ Himself? Then may I take away parts of Christ and make them parts of a prostitute? Never! Never!

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."

Keep on running from sexual immorality! Any other sin that a man commits is one outside his body, but the man who commits the sexual sin is sinning against his own body.

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,

But if they do not practice self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to be burning in the fire of passion.

To the people already married I give this instruction -- no, not I but the Lord -- that a wife is not to leave her husband.

To the rest of the people I myself would say -- though the Lord Himself has said nothing about it -- if a Christian has a wife that is not a believer and she consents to live with him, he must not divorce her;

and a woman who has a husband that is not a believer, but he consents to live with her, must not divorce her husband.

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.

Were you called while a slave? Stop letting that annoy you. Yet, if you can win your freedom, take advantage of such an opportunity.

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.

and those that mourn as though they did not mourn, and those who are glad as though they were not glad, and those who buy as though they did not own a thing,

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.

Now if a father thinks that he is not doing the proper thing regarding his single daughter, if she is past the bloom of her youth, and she ought to do so, let him do what she desires; he commits no sin. Let the daughter and her suitor marry.

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

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

Now about the foods that have been sacrificed to idols: We know that every one of us has some knowledge of the matter. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

If a man supposes that he has already gotten some true knowledge, as yet he has not learned it as he ought to know it.

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.

But it is not in all of you that such knowledge is found. Some, because of their past habits with idols, even down to the present moment, still eat such food as was really sacrificed to an idol, and so their consciences, because they are overscrupulous, are contaminated.

But you must see to it that this right of yours does not become a stumbling block to overscrupulous people.

It cannot be that we have no right to our food and drink, can it?

It cannot be that we have no right to take a Christian wife about with us, can it, as well as the rest of the apostles and the Lord's brothers, and Cephas?

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?

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.

But I myself have never used any of these rights. And I am not writing this just to make it so in my case, for I had rather die than do that. No one shall rob me of this ground of boasting.

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.

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.

Any man who enters an athletic contest practices rigid self-control in training, only to win a wreath that withers, but we are in to win a wreath that never withers.

So that is the way I run, with no uncertainty as to winning. That is the way I box, not like one that punches the air.

But I keep on beating and bruising my body and making it my slave, so that I, after I have summoned others to the race, may not myself become unfit to run.

For I would not have you, brothers, to be ignorant of the fact that though our forefathers were all made safe by the cloud, and all went securely through the sea, and in the cloud and the sea

and all drank the same spiritual drink -- for they continued to drink the water from the spiritual Rock which accompanied them, and that Rock was the Christ --

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.

Then what do I mean? That the sacrifice to an idol is a reality, or that an idol itself is a reality? Of course not!

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.

Or, are we trying to incite the Lord to jealousy? We are not stronger than He, are we?

No one should always be looking after his own welfare, but also that of his neighbor.

As a rule eat anything that is sold in the meat market without raising any question about it for conscience' sake,

for the earth and everything that it contains belong to the Lord.

If I give thanks and thus partake of food, why am I to be blamed for that for which I give thanks?

just as I myself am in the habit of pleasing everybody in everything, not aiming at my own welfare but at that of as many people as possible, in order that they may be saved.

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.

Does not nature itself teach you that it is degrading for a man to wear long hair,

but that it is a woman's glory to do so? For her hair is given her for a covering.

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.

For, in the first place, when you meet as a congregation, I hear that there are cliques among you, and I partly believe it.

Yes, indeed, there must be parties among you, in order that people of approved fitness may come to the front among you.

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.

For the account that I passed on to you I myself received from the Lord Himself, that the Lord Jesus on the night He was betrayed took a loaf of bread

But since we do bring down upon us this judgment, we are being disciplined by the Lord, so that finally we may not be condemned along with the world.

If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, so that your meetings may not bring on you judgment. I will settle in detail the matters that remain, when I come.