These are all produced by one and the same Spirit, and apportioned to each of us just as the Spirit chooses.

As it is, God has arranged the parts, every one of them in the body as he wished them to be.

If they were all one part, where would the body be?

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.

So if you in your ecstatic speaking utter words no one can understand, how will people know what you are saying? You will be talking to the empty air!

So if I do not know the meaning of the language, I shall seem to the man who is speaking to be a foreigner, and he will seem to me to be one too.

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

In the Law it says, "By men of strange languages and by the lips of foreigners I will speak to this nation, and not even then will they listen to me, says the Lord."

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,

Then what is the right course, brothers? When you meet together, suppose every one of you has a song, a teaching, a revelation, an ecstatic utterance, or an explanation of one; it must all be for the good of all.

If there is any ecstatic speaking, let it be limited to two or three people at the most, and have one speak at a time and someone explain what he says.

For in this way you can all preach one after another, as you are inspired to, so that everyone may be instructed and stimulated,

If anyone claims to be inspired to preach, or to have any other spiritual endowment, let him understand that what I am now writing you is a command from the Lord.

If anyone pays no attention to it, pay no attention to him.

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

Now I want to remind you, brothers, of the form in which I presented to you the good news I brought, which you accepted and have stood by,

and through which you are to be saved, if you hold on, unless your faith has been all for nothing.

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

After that he was seen by more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, although some of them have fallen asleep.

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

and finally he was seen by me also, as though I were born at the wrong time.

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

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

For just as because of their relation to Adam all men die, so because of their relation to Christ they will all be brought to life again.

The last enemy to be overthrown will be death,

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.

And when everything is reduced to subjection to him, then the Son himself will also become subject to him who has reduced everything to subjection to him, so that God may be everything to everyone.

Otherwise, what do people mean by having themselves baptized on behalf of their dead? If the dead do not rise at all, why do they have themselves baptized on their behalf?

By the very pride I take in you, brothers, through our union with Christ Jesus our Lord, I face death every day.

From the human point of view, what good is it to me that I have fought wild animals here in Ephesus? If the dead do not rise at all, "Let us eat and drink, for we will be dead tomorrow!"

Do not be misled. Bad company ruins character.

and as we have been like the man of the earth, let us also try to be like the man from heaven.

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

in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the sound of the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised free from decay, and we shall be changed.

On the first of every week each of you is to put aside and store up whatever he gains, so that money will not have to be collected after I come.

and I will probably stay some time with you, or even pass the winter, so that you may start me off for wherever I may be going.

Be on the watch. Stand firm in your faith. Act like men. Show yourselves strong.

Now I urge you, brothers??ou know that the family of Stephanas was the first to be converted in Greece, and that they have devoted themselves to the service of God's people??16 I want you to enlist under such leaders, and under anyone who joins with you and works hard.

The churches of Asia wish to be remembered to you. Aquila and Prisca, with the congregation that meets at their house, send you their special Christian greetings.

All the brothers wish to be remembered to you. Greet one another with a sacred kiss.

The blessing of the Lord Jesus be with you!

My love be with you all through Christ Jesus.

Paul, by God's will an apostle of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, to the church of God that is at Corinth, and all God's people all over Greece;

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the merciful Father, and the God always ready to comfort!

He comforts me in all my trouble, so that I can comfort people who are in any trouble with the comfort with which I myself am comforted by God.

Why, I felt in my heart that the end must be death. That was to keep me from relying on myself instead of on God, who can even raise the dead.

You must help me by your prayers, so that many will give thanks to God on my behalf for the blessing granted me in answer to many prayers.

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.

as some of you have come to understand me, and that you will understand that you have a right to be proud of me, as I have of you, on the Day of our Lord Jesus.

As surely as God can be relied on, there has been no equivocation about our message to you.

This is what I said in my letter, so that I might avoid coming and having my feelings hurt by the very people who might have been expected to make me happy, for I felt sure about you all, that what made me happy would make you all happy.

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.

For that individual, this censure by the majority of you is punishment enough,

and so you must now turn around and forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by his remorse.

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.

why should not the religion of the Spirit be attended with much greater splendor?

For if what faded away came with splendor, how much more splendid what is permanent must be!

So since by the mercy of God I am engaged in this service, I never lose heart.

I disown disgraceful, underhanded ways. I refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's message. It is by the open statement of the truth that I would commend myself to every human conscience in the sight of God.

never free from the danger of being put to death like Jesus, so that in my body the life of Jesus also may be seen.

For every day I live I am being given up to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be visible in my mortal nature.

sure that he who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will raise me also like Jesus, and bring me side by side with you into his presence.

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.

(for I have to guide my steps by faith, not by what is seen)??8 yet I am confident, and I prefer to leave my home in the body and make my home with the Lord.

For we must all appear in our true characters before the tribunal of the Christ, each to be repaid with good or evil for the life he has lived in the body.

I am not trying to recommend myself to you again. I am giving you cause to be proud of me, to use in answering men who pride themselves on external advantages and not on sincerity of heart.

So from that time on, I have estimated nobody at what he seemed to be outwardly; even though I once estimated Christ in that way, I no longer do so.

It is for Christ, therefore, that I am an envoy, seeing that God makes his appeal through me. On Christ's behalf I beg you to be reconciled to God.

He made him who knew nothing of sin to be sin, for our sake, so that through union with him we might become God's uprightness.

I put no obstacles in anyone's path, so that no fault may be found with my work.

To pay me back, I tell you, my children, you must open your hearts too.

What bargain can a temple of God make with idols? For we are a temple of the living God, just as God said, "I will live in them and move among them, And I will be their God and they will be my people."

So since we have promises like these, dear friends, let us cleanse ourselves of everything that can defile body or spirit, and by reverence for God make our consecration complete.

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.

That is why I am so comforted. With all my own comfort, I was still more overjoyed at the gladness of Titus, for his mind has been set at rest by you all.

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.

I do not mean this as a command. I only want to test the genuineness of your love by the devotion of others.

You know how gracious the Lord Jesus Christ was. Though he was rich, he became poor for your sake, in order that by his poverty you might become rich.

Now finish doing it, so that your readiness to undertake it may be equaled by the way you finish it up, as well as your means permit.

I do not mean to be easy upon others and hard upon you,

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."

What is more, he has been appointed by the churches to travel with me in the interests of this generous undertaking, which I am superintending to honor the Lord and to show our readiness to help.

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;

as the Scripture says, "He scatters his gifts to the poor; His uprightness will never be forgotten."

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!

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.

It is no strain for me to do this, as it might be for people who had never got so far, for I was the first to come all the way to you with the good news of the Christ.

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 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.

I robbed other churches, letting them pay me so that I could work for you!

By the truth of Christ that is in me, this boast of mine shall not be silenced anywhere in Greece.

Five times I have been given one less than forty lashes, by the Jews.

I have been beaten three times by the Romans, I have been stoned once, I have been shipwrecked three times, a night and a day I have been adrift at sea;

If there must be boasting, I will boast of the things that show my weakness!

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.