But the one and same Spirit accomplishes all these achievements, and apportions power to each of us as He chooses.

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

For by one Spirit all of us, Jews or Greeks, slaves or freemen, have been baptized into one body, and were all imbued with one Spirit.

If all the body were an eye, how could we hear? If all the body were an ear, how could we smell?

If they were all one part, how could it be a body?

and the parts of it we deem devoid of honor we dress with special honor, and our ill-shaped parts receive more careful attention,

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,

so that there is no disharmony in the body, but all the parts have a common care for one another.

If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it. If one part receives an honor, all the parts can share its joy.

Not all are apostles, are they? Not all are prophets, are they? Not all are teachers, are they? Not all are wonder-workers, are they?

Not all are people with power to cure the sick, are they? Not all are ecstatic speakers, are they? Not all can explain ecstatic speaking, can they?

But you must earnestly continue to cultivate your higher spiritual gifts. And yet I will show you a way that is better by far:

If I should have the gift of prophecy, And know all secret truths, and knowledge in its every form, and have such perfect faith that I could move mountains, but have no love, I am nothing.

If I should dole out everything I have for charity, and give my body up to torture in mere boasting pride, but have no love, I get from it no good at all.

Love never fails; if there are prophecies, they will be set aside; if now exist ecstatic speakings, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will soon be set aside;

But when perfection comes, what is imperfect will be set aside.

I would like for all of you to speak in ecstasy, but I would rather that you prophesy. The man who speaks with real prophetic insight renders greater service than the man who speaks in ecstasy, unless the latter explains it, so the congregation may receive an uplift.

Again, indeed, if the bugle does not sound a call distinct and clear, who will prepare for battle?

So it is with you; unless in your ecstatic speaking you speak a message that is clearly intelligible, how can the message spoken by you be understood? You might just as well be talking to the air!

What is my conclusion then? I will certainly pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind in action too. I will certainly sing with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind in action too. For if you give thanks with your spirit only,

In the law it is written, "By men of foreign languages and by the lips of foreigners I will speak to this people, but even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord."

So speaking in ecstasy is meant as a sign, not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is meant, not for unbelievers but for believers.

Hence, if the whole church has met and everybody speaks in ecstasy, and illiterate people or unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are crazy?

But if everybody prophesies, and some unbeliever or illiterate man comes in, he is convinced of his sins by all, he is closely questioned by all,

Then what is our conclusion, brothers? When you meet together, everybody has a song, something to teach, a revelation, an ecstatic utterance, or an explanation of one. It must all be for the upbuilding of all.

For in this way you can all, one after another, speak your prophetic message, so that all may learn and be encouraged,

for God is not a God of disorder but of order, as it is in all the churches of God's people.

Then He was seen by James, then by all the apostles, and finally

For just as all men die by virtue of their descent from Adam, so all such as are in union with Christ will be made to live again.

After that comes the end, when He will turn the kingdom over to God His Father, when He will put an end to all other government, authority, and power;

for He must continue to be king until He puts all His enemies under His feet.

for He has put everything in subjection under His feet. But when He says that everything has been put in subjection to Him, He Himself is evidently excepted who put it all in subjection to Him.

And when everything has been put in subjection to Him, then the Son Himself will also become subject to Him who has put everything in subjection to Him, so that God may be everything to everybody.

Otherwise, what do those people mean who submit to being baptized on behalf of their dead? If the dead are never raised at all, why do they submit to being baptized on their behalf?

If from merely human motives I have fought wild beasts here in Ephesus, what profit will it be to me? If the dead are never raised at all, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall be dead."

But someone will ask, "How can the dead rise? With what kind of body do they come back?"

But this I tell you, brothers: Our physical bodies cannot take part in the kingdom of God; what is decaying will never take part in what is immortal.

Let me 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 with bodies not subject to decay, and we shall be changed.

And when this part once capable of dying puts on the body that can never die, then what the Scripture says will come true, "Death has been swallowed up in victory.

When I get there, I will send on, with credentials, the persons whom you approve, to carry your gift of charity to Jerusalem.

I will come to see you after I pass through Macedonia -- for I am to pass through Macedonia --

So no one must slight him at all. But send him on with your goodbye, that he may come back to me, for I am expecting him with the other brothers.

As for our brother Apollos, I have earnestly urged him to go to see you, but he is not at all inclined to come just now; yet he is coming when he has a good opportunity.

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

My love be with you all in union with Christ Jesus.

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

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the merciful Father and the all-comforting God,

My hope for you is well founded; because I know that just as you, brothers, are sharers of my sufferings, so you will be sharers of my comfort too.

He saved me from a death so horrible, and He will save me again! He it is on whom I have set my hope that He will still save me,

because you are helping me by your prayers for me, so that thanks to God will be given by many on my behalf for God's gracious gift to me in answer to the prayers of many.

For what I am writing you is nothing more than what you can read and understand, and I hope that you will understand it perfectly, just as some of you have come to understand me partially;

But it is God who makes us as well as you secure through union with Christ, and has anointed us,

This is the very thing I wrote you, that when I did come I might not be made sad by the very people who ought to make me glad, for I had confidence in you all that my gladness would be gladness to you all.

For out of great sorrow and distress of heart, yes, while shedding many tears, I wrote you, not to make you sad but to make you realize that my love for you continues running over.

But if anyone has made anyone sad, it is not I, but you that he has made sad, at least, some of you, not to be severe on all of you.

For if the service connected with condemnation had such splendor, the service resulting in right standing with God will surely far surpass it in splendor.

For on account of its surpassing splendor, what was once so splendid has now no splendor at all.

And all of us, with faces uncovered, because we continue to reflect like mirrors the splendor of the Lord, are being transformed into likeness to Him, from one degree of splendor to another, since it comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

On the other hand, I have renounced all underhanded, disgraceful methods; I neither practice cunning nor do I tamper with God's message, but by clear and candid statements of truth I try to commend myself to every human conscience in God's sight.

If the meaning of the good news I preach is covered up at all, it is so only in the case of those who are on the way to destruction.

For all the time I continue to live I am being given up to death for Jesus' sake, so that in my mortal lower nature the life of Jesus may be clearly shown.

because I know that He who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will raise me too in fellowship with you.

For we must all appear before the judgment-bar of Christ, that each may get his pay for what he has done, whether it be good or bad.

I am not trying to recommend myself to you again. I am giving you ground for speaking well of me, that you may have something to say to those who are constantly prating about external privileges and not concerned about the state of the heart.

For the love of Christ continuously constrains me, because I am convinced that as One died for all, all have died,

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

This has all originated with God, for He through Christ has reconciled me to Himself and has given me the ministry of reconciliation.

obscure and yet well-known, on the point of dying and yet I go on living, punished and yet not put to death,

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

Therefore: "'Come out of company with them, and separate from them,' the Lord has said, 'And stop touching what is unclean; then I will welcome you,

I will be a Father to you, and you will be sons and daughters of mine,' The Lord Almighty said."

I have the greatest confidence in you; I speak most highly of you. I am fully comforted; in the face of all my sorrow my cup is running over with joy.

I am glad of it now, not because you had such sorrow, but because your sorrow led you to repentance, for you took your sorrow in accordance with the will of God, so that you should not suffer any loss at all from me.

For the sorrow that comes in accordance with the will of God results in repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regrets, but the sorrow the world produces results in death.

For see what this very sorrow, suffered in accordance with the will of God, has done for you! How earnest it has made you, how concerned to clear yourselves, how indignant, how alarmed, how much it made you long to see me, how loyal to me, how determined to punish the offender! At every point you have cleared yourselves in the matter.

Indeed, if I have been doing some boasting of you to him, I have never been ashamed of it; but just as all I said to him was true, so now my boasting before Titus has been shown to be true.

Yes, his heart is running over toward you, as he continues recalling how you all obeyed him, with what reverence and trembling you welcomed him.

They did not do as I expected but even more; they first by God's will gave themselves to the Lord, and then to me;

Now I will give you my opinion on this matter. For this is for your interest, because you were not only the first to do anything about it, but the first to want to do so; you started it a year ago.

I am sending with him the well-known brother whose praise for spreading the good news is ringing through all the churches.

As for Titus, he is my partner and comrade in the work for you, while these brothers of ours, the representatives of the churches, will bring glory to Christ.

So you must furnish them, before all the churches, proof of your love and ground for my praising you so highly.

But I send the brothers that in this matter my boasting of you may not turn out to be an idle boasting, that you all may be ready, as I have told them you will be,

Now this is the way it is: Whoever sows sparingly will reap sparingly too, but whoever sows bountifully will reap bountifully too.

And God is able to make your every spiritual blessing overflow for you, so that you will always have in every situation an entire sufficiency and so overflow for every good cause;

He who always supplies the sower with seed and the eater with bread will supply you with seed and multiply it and enlarge the harvest which your deeds of charity yield.

In every way you will grow richer and richer so as to give with perfect liberality, which will through me result in thanksgiving to God for it.

For through the test you get by doing this service you will continue praising God for your fidelity to your confession of the good news of Christ, and for the liberality of your contributions to them and all others;

and so in their prayers for you they will continue longing for you, because of God's surpassing favor shown you.

For if anybody comes along and preaches another Jesus than the one I preached, or you receive another spirit different from the one you did receive or a glad message different from the one you did accept, you listen to it all right!

Since many boast in accordance with their human nature, I will do it too.

I am ashamed to say that I was, as it were, so weak in the matter. And yet in whatever respect anyone else is daring to boast -- I am talking like a fool -- I too will dare to boast.

Besides all other things, there is my concern for all the churches.