Now, we have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who comes from God, so that we can understand the things that were freely given to us by God.

A person who isn't spiritual doesn't accept the things of God's Spirit, for they are nonsense to him. He can't understand them because they are spiritually evaluated.

I planted, Apollos watered, but God kept everything growing.

So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is significant, but God, who keeps everything growing, is the one who matters.

For we are God's co-workers. You are God's farmland and God's building.

As an expert builder using the grace that God gave me, I laid the foundation, and someone else is building on it. But each person must be careful how he builds on it.

You know that you are God's sanctuary and that God's Spirit lives in you, don't you?

If anyone destroys God's sanctuary, God will destroy him, for God's sanctuary is holy. And you are that sanctuary!

For the wisdom of this world is nonsense in God's sight. For it is written, "He catches the wise with their own trickery,"

but you belong to the Messiah, and the Messiah belongs to God.

Think of us as servants of the Messiah and as servant managers entrusted with God's secrets.

Therefore, stop judging prematurely, before the Lord comes, for he will bring to light what is now hidden in darkness and reveal the motives of our hearts. Then each person will receive his praise from God.

For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display in last place, like men condemned to death. We have become a spectacle for the world, for angels, and for people to stare at.

for the kingdom of God isn't just talk, but also power.

Your boasting is not good. You know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough, don't you?

Get rid of the old yeast so that you may be a new batch of dough, since you are to be free from yeast. For the Messiah, our Passover, has been sacrificed.

God will judge outsiders. "Expel that wicked man."

You know that wicked people will not inherit the kingdom of God, don't you? Stop deceiving yourselves! Sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, homosexuals,

thieves, greedy people, drunks, slanderers, and robbers will not inherit the kingdom of God.

That is what some of you were! But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus the Messiah and by the Spirit of our God.

Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food, but God will make them both unnecessary. The body is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

God raised the Lord, and by his power he will also raise us.

You know that your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God, don't you? You do not belong to yourselves,

because you were bought for a price. Therefore, glorify God with your bodies.

I would like everyone to be unmarried, like I am. However, each person has a special gift from God, one this and another that.

I say to those who are unmarried, especially to widows: It is good for them to remain like me.

However, if they cannot control themselves, they should get married, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

But if the unbelieving partner leaves, let him go. In such cases the brother or sister is not under obligation. God has called you to live in peace.

Nevertheless, everyone should live the life that the Lord gave him and to which God called him. This is my rule in all the churches.

Was anyone circumcised when he was called? He should not try to change that. Was anyone uncircumcised when he was called? He should not get circumcised.

Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but obeying God's commandments is everything.

Brothers, everyone should stay in the same condition in which he was called by God.

Have you become committed to a wife? Stop trying to get released from your commitment. Have you been freed from your commitment to a wife? Stop looking for one.

But if you do get married, you have not sinned. And if a virgin gets married, she has not sinned. However, these people will experience trouble in this life, and I want to spare you from that.

An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the affairs of the Lord, so that she may be holy in body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world, that is, about how she can please her husband. I'm saying this for your benefit, not to put a noose around your necks, but to promote good order and unhindered devotion to the Lord.

If a man thinks he is not behaving properly toward his virgin, and if his passion is so strong that he feels he ought to marry her, let him do what he wants; he isn't sinning. Let them get married.

However, in my opinion she will be happier if she stays as she is. And in saying this, I think that I, too, have God's Spirit.

But anyone who loves God is known by him.

Now concerning eating food offered to idols: We know that no idol is real in this world and that there is only one God.

yet for us there is only one God, the Father, from whom everything came into being and for whom we live. And there is only one Lord, Jesus the Messiah, through whom everything came into being and through whom we live.

However, food will not bring us closer to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat food that has been offered to an idol, and no better off if we do.

For in the Law of Moses it is written, "You must not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain." God is not only concerned about oxen, is he?

You know that those who work in the Temple get their food from the Temple and that those who serve at the altar get their share of its offerings, don't you?

For if I preach voluntarily, I get a reward, but if I am unwilling to do it, I am still entrusted with that obligation.

To those who do not have the Law, I became like a man who does not have the Law in order to win those who do not have the Law. However, I am not free from God's Law, but I'm subject to the Messiah's law.

But God wasn't pleased with most of those people, and so they were struck down in the wilderness.

Let's stop being idolaters, as some of them were. As it is written, "The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to play."

No temptation has overtaken you that is unusual for human beings. But God is faithful, and he will not allow you to be tempted beyond your strength. Instead, along with the temptation he will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to endure it.

Hardly! What they offer, they offer to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to become partners with demons.

Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.

Don't become a stumbling block to Jews or Greeks or to the church of God,

Now I want you to realize that the Messiah is the head of every man, and man is the head of the woman, and God is the head of the Messiah.

So if a woman does not cover her head, she should cut off her hair. If it is a disgrace for a woman to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her own head.

A man should not cover his head, because he exists as God's image and glory. But the woman is man's glory.

For as woman came from man, so man comes through woman. But everything comes from God.

Decide for yourselves: Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered?

But if anyone wants to argue about this, we do not have any custom like this, nor do any of God's churches.

You have homes in which to eat and drink, don't you? Or do you despise God's church and humiliate those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I praise you? I will not praise you for this!

For this reason I want you to be aware that no one who is speaking by God's Spirit can say, "Jesus is cursed," and no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit.

There are varieties of results, but it is the same God who produces all the results in everyone.

To each person has been given the ability to manifest the Spirit for the common good.

But now God has arranged the parts, every one of them, in the body according to his plan.

However, our attractive parts don't need this. But God has put the body together and has given special honor to the parts that lack it,

God has appointed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then those who perform miracles, those who have gifts of healing, those who help others, administrators, and those who speak various kinds of languages.

For the person who speaks in a foreign language is not actually speaking to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands him, because he is talking about secrets by the Spirit.

Indeed, brothers, if I come to you speaking in foreign languages, what good will I be to you unless I speak to you in some revelation, knowledge, prophecy, or teaching?

For example, if a bugle doesn't sound a clear call, who will get ready for battle?

It's good for you to give thanks, but it does not build up the other person.

I thank God that I speak in foreign languages more than all of you.

His secret, inner heart will become known, and so he will bow down to the ground and worship God, declaring, "God is truly among you!"

If an interpreter is not present, the speaker should remain silent in the church and speak to himself and God.

for God is not a God of disorder but of peace.

Did God's word originate with you? Are you the only ones it has reached?

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

But by God's grace I am what I am, and his grace shown to me was not wasted. Instead, I worked harder than all the others not I, of course, but God's grace that was with me.

In addition, we are found to be false witnesses about God because we testified on God's behalf that he raised the Messiah whom he did not raise if in fact it is true that the dead are not raised.

Then the end will come, when after he has done away with every ruler and every authority and power, the Messiah hands over the kingdom to God the Father.

For he must rule until God puts all the Messiah's enemies under his feet.

for "God has put everything under his feet." Now when he says, "Everything has been put under him," this clearly excludes the one who put everything under him.

But when everything has been put under him, then the Son himself will also become subject to the one who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.

If I have fought with wild animals in Ephesus from merely human motives, what do I get out of it? If the dead are not raised, "Let's eat and drink, for tomorrow we die."

Come back to your senses as you should, and stop sinning! For some of you I say this to your shame don't fully know God.

But God gives the plant the form he wants it to have, and to each kind of seed its own form.

Brothers, this is what I mean: Mortal bodies cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and what decays cannot inherit what does not decay.

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus the Messiah!

From: Paul, an apostle of the Messiah Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother. To: God's church in Corinth, and to all the holy people throughout Achaia.

May grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus, the Messiah, be yours!

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah! He is our merciful Father and the God of all comfort,

who comforts us in all our suffering, so that we may be able to comfort others in all their suffering, as we ourselves are being comforted by God.

In fact, we felt that we had received a death sentence so we would not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.

as you also help us by your prayers for us. Then many people will thank God on our behalf because of the favor shown us through the prayers of many.

For this is what we boast about: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world with pure motives and godly sincerity, without earthly wisdom but with God's grace especially toward you.

As certainly as God is faithful, we haven't talked to you with mixed messages like that.

For God's Son, Jesus the Messiah, who was preached among you by us by me, Silvanus, and Timothy was not "Yes" and "No." But with him it is always "Yes."

For all God's promises are "Yes" in him. And so through him we can say "Amen," to the glory of God.

Now the one who makes us and you as well secure in union with the Messiah and has anointed us is God,

I call upon God as a witness on my behalf that it was in order to spare you that I did not return to Corinth.

But thanks be to God! He always leads us triumphantly by the Messiah and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of knowing him.

To God we are the aroma of the Messiah among those who are being saved and among those who are being lost.

At least we are not commercializing God's word like so many others. Instead, we speak with sincerity in the Messiah's name, like people who are sent from God and are accountable to God.