For now we are looking at a dim reflection in a mirror, but then we shall see face to face. Now my knowledge is imperfect, but then I shall know as fully as God knows me.

For anyone who speaks ecstatically is speaking not to men but to God, for no one can understand him, though he is uttering secret truths.

But the inspired preacher does his fellow-men good and encourages and comforts them.

Anyone who speaks ecstatically does himself good, but the inspired preacher does a congregation good.

I want you all to speak ecstatically, but I especially want you to be inspired to preach. The man who is inspired to preach is more useful than the one who speaks ecstatically??nless he can explain what he says so that it may do the church some good.

But as it is brothers, if I come back to you and speak ecstatically, what good will I do you, unless I have some revelation or special knowledge or message or teaching to give you?

Even inanimate things, like the flute or the harp, may produce sound, but if there is no difference in the notes, how can you tell what is being played?

For if I pray ecstatically, it is my spirit that prays, but my mind is helping nobody.

Then what am I to do? I will pray ecstatically, but I will pray intelligently too. I will sing ecstatically, but I will sing intelligently too.

You are giving thanks well enough, but it is doing him no good.

But in public worship I would rather say five words with my understanding so as to instruct others also than ten thousand words in an ecstasy.

Brothers, you must not be children mentally. In evil be babies, but mentally be mature.

So this ecstatic speaking is meant as a sign not to those who believe but to unbelievers, but inspired preaching is a sign not to unbelievers but to those who believe.

But if they are all inspired to preach and some unbeliever or outsider comes in, he is convinced of his sin by them all, he is called to account by them all,

But if there is no one to explain it, have him keep quiet in church, and talk to himself and to God.

for God is not a God of disorder but of peace. This is the rule in all Christian churches.

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

But by God's favor I have become what I am, and the favor he showed me has not gone for nothing, but I have worked harder than any of them, although it was not really I but the favor God showed me.

But whether it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.

But the truth is, Christ was raised from the dead, the first to be raised of those who have fallen asleep.

But each in his own turn; Christ first, and then at Christ's coming those who belong to him.

for everything is to be reduced to subjection and put under Christ's feet. But when it says that everything is subject to him, he is evidently excepted who reduced it all to subjection to him.

But someone will say, "How can the dead rise? What kind of a body will they have when they come back?"

and when you sow it, it has not the form it is going to have, but is a naked kernel, perhaps of wheat or something else;

There are heavenly bodies, and there are earthly bodies, but the beauty of the heavenly bodies is of one kind, and the beauty of the earthly bodies is of another.

It is not the spiritual that comes first, but the physical, and then the spiritual.

But I can tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot share in the Kingdom of God, and decay will not share in what is imperishable.

I will tell you a secret. We shall not all fall asleep, but we shall all be changed,

But I shall stay in Ephesus until the Harvest Festival,

So no one is to slight him. But see him off cordially when he comes back to me, for I am expecting him with the other brothers.

As for our brother Apollos, I have often urged him to visit you with the other brothers, and he is quite unwilling to come now, but he will come when he has a good opportunity.

For my boast is what my conscience tells me, that my relations to the world and still more to you have been marked by pure motives and godly sincerity, not by worldly shrewdness but by the favor of God.

But it is God who guarantees us and you to Christ; he has anointed us

But upon my soul I call God to witness that it is simply to spare you that I have stayed away from Corinth.

For if I hurt your feelings, who is there to cheer me up but the man whose feelings I hurt?

For I was in great trouble and distress of mind when I wrote you, and I shed many tears as I did it, yet it was not to hurt your feelings, but to make you realize the extraordinary affection I have for you.

But if anyone has hurt anybody's feelings, it is not so much mine, as yours, or at least those of some of you, not to be too hard upon you all.

but my mind could not rest because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said goodbye to them and went on to Macedonia.

But thank God! he always leads me in his triumphal train, through Christ, and spreads the perfume of knowledge of him everywhere through me as his censer-bearer.

For I am no peddler of God's message, like most men, but like a man of sincerity, commissioned by God and in his presence, in union with Christ I utter his message.

You show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by me, written not in ink, but in the Spirit of the living God, and not on tablets of stone, but on the human heart.

and he has qualified me to serve him in the interests of a new agreement, not in writing but of spirit. For what is written kills, but the Spirit gives life.

But if the religion of death, carved in letters of stone, was ushered in with such splendor, so that the Israelites could not look at Moses' face on account of the brightness that was fading from it,

but "whenever a man turns to the Lord, the veil is removed."

For it is not myself but Christ Jesus that I am proclaiming as Lord; I am only a slave of yours for Jesus' sake.

But I have this treasure in a mere ear then jar, to show that its amazing power belongs to God and not to me.

I am hard pressed on every side, but never cut off: perplexed, but not driven to despair;

routed, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed;

So it is death that operates in my case, but life that operates in yours.

because I keep my eyes not on what is seen but what is unseen. For what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal.

For I know that if this earthly tent that I live in is taken down, God will provide me a building in heaven to live in, not built by human hands but eternal.

For I who am still in my tent sigh with anxiety, because I do not want to be stripped of it, but to put on the other over it, so that what is only mortal may be absorbed in life.

and he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again.

obscure, when I am well known, at the point of death, yet here I am alive, punished, but not dead yet,

But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted me by the coming of Titus,

and not only by his coming, but by the comfort you had given him, for he told me how you longed to see me, how sorry you were, and how you took my part, which made me happier still.

I am glad of it now; not because you had your feelings hurt, but because having them hurt led you to repent, for you took it as God meant you to do, so that you should not lose anything at all through me.

For the pain that God approves results in a repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regrets; but the world's pain results in death.

So although I did write to you, it was not on account of the offender, nor of the injured man, but in the sight of God to reveal to you your devotion to me.

If I did express some pride in you to him, I have had no reason to be ashamed of it, but just as all I said to you was true, my boasting before Titus has also proved true.

But I will tell you what I think about it. For this is the best way to deal with you, for you were the first not only to do anything about this, but to want to do anything, and that was last year.

but to equalize the burden, and in the present situation to have your plenty make up for what they need, so that some day their plenty may make up for what you need, and so things may be made equal??15 as the Scripture says, "The man who got much did not have too much, and the man who got little did not have too little."

for he has responded to my appeal, but he goes to you really of his own accord, he is so devoted to you.

I intend to do what is right not only in the Lord's sight but in the eyes of men.

But I send the brothers so that our pride in you may not have a fall in this matter, but you may be all ready as I have told them you will;

I appeal to you personally, by the gentleness and forbearance of Christ??he Paul who is so humble when face to face with you, but so bold in dealing with you when he is far away!

for the weapons I use are not earthly ones, but divinely strong for destroying fortresses.

For they say, "His letters are impressive and telling, but his personal appearance is insignificant and as a speaker he amounts to nothing."

I do not indeed venture to class or compare myself with certain individuals who approve of themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they do not show good sense.

But my boasting will not be extravagant, nor exceed the limits God has allowed me, which reach all the way to you.

I do not indulge in extravagant boasts over work done by others, but I do hope that as your faith increases, my influence may be immensely enlarged through you,

But let the man who boasts, boast about the Lord.

But I am afraid that just as the serpent by his cunning deceived Eve, your thoughts will be led astray from their single-hearted fidelity to Christ.

So it is nothing strange if his servants also masquerade as servants of uprightness. But their doom will fit their actions.

I repeat, no one should think me a fool, but if you do, show me at least the patience you would show a fool, and let me have my little boast like the others.

When I boast in this reckless way, I do not say what I am saying for the Lord, but as a fool would talk.

To my shame I must admit that I was too weak for that sort of thing. But whatever anyone else dares to boast of?? am playing the part of a fool?? will dare to boast of too.

but I was lowered in a basket from an opening in the wall, and got out of his clutches.

I have to boast. There is nothing to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations given me by the Lord.

On this man's account I am ready to boast, but about myself I will boast only of my weaknesses.

Though if I do choose to boast, I will not be such a fool, for I will only be telling the truth. But I will refrain from it, for I do not want anyone to be influenced by the wonderful character of these revelations to think more of me than is justified by my words or conduct.

I have been making a fool of myself, but you forced me to do it, when you ought to have been expressing your approval of me. For I am not a bit inferior to your superfine apostles, even if I am nobody!

Here it is the third time that I have been ready to come to see you, and I do not intend to be a burden to you now; for it is not your money but yourselves that I want; for children are not expected to lay up money for their parents, but parents for their children.

But granting that I did not burden you myself, I was clever about it, you say, and took you in by a trick.

Have you been supposing all along that it is before you I have been defending myself? It is in the sight of God and as a follower of Christ that I have been speaking. But it is all to do you good, dear friends,

Even if he was crucified through weakness, by the power of God he is alive. For we are weak as he was, but you will find that by the power of God we will be alive as he is.

But I pray to God that you may not do wrong??ot to prove me equal to the test, but that you should do right even if I fail to stand it.

For I cannot do anything against the truth, but only for it.

Paul, an apostle not from men nor sent by any man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead??2 and all the brothers who are here with me, to the churches of Galatia;

But even if we or an angel from heaven preach to you good news that contradicts the good news we have preached to you, a curse upon him!

I did not receive it from any man, and I was not taught it, but it came to me through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

but I did not see any other apostle, except James, the Lord's brother.

But they did not insist that even my companion Titus, although he was a Greek, should be circumcised,

But we did not submit to them for a moment, in order that the truth of the good news might remain yours.

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, for his own conduct condemned him.

For until some people came from James, he used to eat with the heathen, but after they came, he began to draw back and hold aloof, for fear of the party of circumcision.

But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the good news, I said to Cephas, right before them all, "If you live like a heathen, and not like a Jew, though you are a Jew yourself, why should you try to make the heathen live like Jews?"

but who know that a man is not made upright by doing what the Law commands, but by faith in Christ Jesus??ven we believed in Christ Jesus, so as to be made upright by faith in Christ and not by doing what the Law commands??or by doing what the Law commands no one can be made upright.

I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ that lives in me. The life I am now living in the body I am living by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Now the promises were made to Abraham and his line. It does not say, "and to your lines," in the plural, but in the singular, "and to your line," that is, Christ.