And you must not murmur, as some of them did ??only to be destroyed by the destroying angel.

The cup of blessing, which we bless, is that not participating in the blood of Christ? The bread we break, is that not participating in the body of Christ?

Look at the rites of Israel. Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar?

No, what I imply is that anything people sacrifice is sacrificed to daemons, not to God. And I do not want you to participate in daemons!

'All things are lawful'? Yes, but not all are good for us. 'All things are lawful'? Yes, but not all are edifying.

Each of us must consult his neighbour's interests, not his own.

But if someone tells you, 'This was sacrificial meat,' then do not eat it; you must consider the man who told you, and also take conscience into account ??29 his conscience, I mean, not your own; for why should one's own freedom be called in question by someone else's conscience?

Such is my own rule, to satisfy all men in all points, aiming not at my own advantage but at the advantage of the greater number ??at their salvation.

If a woman will not veil herself, she should cut off her hair as well. But she ought to veil herself; for it is disgraceful that a woman should have her hair cut off or be shaven.

Man does not require to have a veil on his head, for he represents the likeness and supremacy of God; but woman represents the supremacy of man.

(Man was not made from woman, woman was made from man;

and man was not created for woman, but woman for man.)

(Of course, in the Lord, woman does not exist apart from man, any more than man apart from woman;

But in giving you the following injunction I cannot commend you; for you are the worse, not the better, for assembling together.

What! have you no houses to eat and drink in? Do you think you can show disrespect to the church of God and put the poor to shame? What can I say to you? Commend you? Not for this.

I passed on to you what I received from the Lord himself, namely, that on the night he was betrayed the Lord Jesus took a loaf,

If we only judged our own lives truly, we would not come under the Lord's judgment.

As it is, we are chastened when we are judged by him, so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

and if anyone is hungry let him eat at home. You must not gather, only to incur condemnation. I will give you my instructions upon the other matters when I come.

Why, even the body consists not of one member but of many.

If the foot were to say, 'Because I am not the hand, I do not belong to the body,' that does not make it no part of the body.

If the ear were to say, 'Because I am not the eye, I do not belong to the body,' that does not make it no part of the body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you,' nor again the head to the feet, 'I have no need of you.'

which does not need to be paid to our more decorous parts. Yes, God has tempered the body together, with a special dignity for the inferior parts,

For he who speaks in a 'tongue' addresses God not men; no one understands him; he is talking of divine secrets in the Spirit.

Otherwise, suppose you are blessing God in the Spirit, how is the outsider to say 'Amen' to your thanksgiving? The man does not understand what you are saying!

Your thanksgiving may be all right, but then ??the other man is not edified!

Brothers, do not be children in the sphere of intelligence; in evil be mere infants, but be mature in your intelligence.

It is written in the Law, By men of alien tongues and by the lips of aliens I will speak to this People; but even so, they will not listen to me, saith the Lord.

Thus 'tongues' are intended as a sign, not for believers but for unbelievers; whereas prophesying is meant for believers, not for unbelievers.

Hence if at a gathering of the whole church everybody speaks with 'tongues,' and if outsiders or un believers come in, will they not say you are insane?

for God is a God not of disorder but of harmony. [Move 33b-36 to follow vs 40] As is the rule in all churches of the saints,

women must keep quiet at gatherings of the church. They are not allowed to speak; they must take a subordinate place, as the Law enjoins.

To sum up, my brothers. Set your heart on the prophetic gift, and do not put any check upon speaking in 'tongues';

But by God's grace I am what I am. The grace he showed me did not go for nothing; no, I have done far more work than all of them ??though it was not I but God's grace at my side.

If 'there is no such thing as a resurrection from the dead,' then even Christ did not rise;

and if Christ did not rise, then our preaching has gone for nothing, and your faith has gone for nothing too.

Besides, we are detected bearing false witness to God by affirming of him that he raised Christ ??whom he did not raise, if after all dead men never rise.

For if dead men never rise, Christ did not rise either;

and if Christ did not rise, your faith is futile, you are still in your sins.

But it is not so! Christ did rise from the dead, he was the first to be reaped of those who sleep in death.

Otherwise, if there is no such thing as a resurrection, what is the meaning of people getting baptized on behalf of their dead? If dead men do not rise at all, why do people get baptized on their behalf?

(Not a day but I am at death's door! I swear it by my pride in you, brothers, through Christ Jesus our Lord.)

What would it avail me that, humanly speaking, I 'fought with wild beasts' at Ephesus? If dead men do not rise, let us eat and drink, for we will be dead to-morrow!

And what you sow is not the body that is to be; it is a mere grain of wheat, for example, or some other seed.

Flesh is not all the same; there is human flesh, there is flesh of beasts, flesh of birds, and flesh of fish.

but the animate, not the spiritual, comes first, and only then the spiritual.

Here is a secret truth for you: not all of us are to die, but all of us are to be changed ??52 changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet-call. The trumpet will sound, the dead will rise imperishable, and we shall be changed.

On the first day of the week let each of you put aside a sum from his weekly gains, so that the money may not have to be collected when I come.

I do not care about seeing you at this moment merely in the by-going; my hope is to stay among you for some time, with the Lord's permission.

As for our brother Apollos, I urged him to accompany the other brothers on a visit to you; he will come as soon as he has time, but for the present it is not the will of God that he should visit you.

in fact I told myself it was the sentence of death. But that was to make me rely not on myself but on the God who raises the dead;

My proud boast is the testimony of my conscience that holiness and godly sincerity, not worldly cunning but the grace of God, have marked my conduct in the outside world and in particular my relations with you.

By the good faith of God, my word to you was not 'yes and no';

for the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was proclaimed among you by us (by myself and Silvanus and Timotheus) was not 'yes and no' ??the divine 'yes' has at last sounded in him,

(Not that we lord it over your faith ??no, we co-operate for your joy: you have a standing of your own in the faith.)

I decided I would not pay you another painful visit.

So the very reason I wrote was that I might not come only to be pained by those who ought to give me joy; I relied on you all, I felt sure that my joy would be a joy for everyone of you.

For I wrote you in sore distress and misery of heart, with many a tear ??not to pain you but to convince you of my love, my special love for you.

If a certain individual has been causing pain, he has been causing pain not so much to me as to all of you ??at anyrate (for I am not going to overstate the case) to a section of you.

my spirit could not rest, because I did not find Titus my brother there; so I said goodbye and went off to Macedonia.

I am, for I am not like most, adulterating the word of God; like a man of sincerity, like a man of God, I speak the word in Christ before the very presence of God.

Am I beginning again to 'commend' myself? Do I need, like some people, to be commended by written certificates either to you or from you?

you make it obvious that you are a letter of Christ which I have been employed to inscribe, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of the human heart.

It is not that I am personally qualified to form any judgment by myself; my qualifications come from God,

and he has further qualified me to be the minister of a new covenant ??a covenant not of written law but of spirit; for the written law kills but the Spirit makes alive.

Now if the administration of death which was engraved in letters of stone, was invested with glory ??so much so, that the children of Israel could not gaze at the face of Moses on account of the dazzling glory that was fading from his face;

Such being my hope then, I am quite frank and open ??13 not like Moses, who used to hang a veil over his face to keep the children of Israel from gazing at the last rays of a fading glory.

I disown those practices which very shame conceals from view; I do not go about it craftily; I do not falsify the word of God; I state the truth openly and so commend myself to every man's conscience before God.

(It is Christ Jesus as Lord, not myself, that I proclaim; I am simply a servant of yours for Jesus' sake.)

But I possess this treasure in a frail vessel of earth, to show that the transcending power belongs to God, not to myself;

on every side I am harried but not hemmed in, perplexed but not despairing,

persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed ??10 wherever I go, I am being killed in the body as Jesus was, so that the life of Jesus may come out in my body:

for those of us whose eyes are on the unseen, not on the seen; for the seen is transient, the unseen eternal.

since I am sure that once so covered I shall not be 'naked' at the hour of death.

I do sigh within this tent of mine with heavy anxiety ??not that I want to be stripped, no, but to be under the cover of the other, to have my mortal element absorbed by life.

This is not 'recommending myself to you again'; it is giving you an incentive to be proud of me, which you can use against men who are proud of externals instead of the inward reality.

I appeal to you too, as a worker with God, do not receive the grace of God in vain.

I put no obstacle in the path of any, so that my ministry may not be discredited;

'unknown' but well-known, dying but here I am alive, chastened but not killed,

'Restraint'? ??that lies with you, not me.

Therefore come away from them, separate, saith the Lord, touch not what is unclean; then I will receive you,

I am not saying this to condemn you. Condemn you? Why, I repeat, you are in my very heart, and you will be there in death and life alike.

In fact, if I did pain you by that letter, I do not regret it. I did regret it when I discovered that my letter had pained you even for the time being,

but I am glad now ??not glad that you were pained but glad that your pain induced you to repent. For you were pained as God meant you to be pained, and so you got no harm from what I did;

So my letter was written to you, not on account of the offender nor for the sake of the injured party, but in order to let you realize before God how seriously you do care for me.

I told him of my pride in you, and I have not been disappointed. No, just as all I have had to say to you has been true, so all I said about you to Titus, all my pride in you, has also proved true.

I am not issuing any orders, only using the zeal of others to prove how sterling your own love is.

But I will tell you what I think about it; it is to your interest to go on with this enterprise, for you started it last year, you were the first not merely to do anything but to want to do anything.

If only one is ready to give, according to his means, it is acceptable; he is not asked to give what he has not got.

This does not mean that other people are to be relieved and you to suffer:

Thus it is to give and take ??as it is written, He who got much had nothing over, and he who got little had not too little.

I aim at being above reproach not only from God but also from men.

in case any Macedonians accompany me and find you are not ready ??which would make me (not to speak of yourselves) ashamed of having been so sure.

That is why I have thought it necessary to ask these brothers to go on in advance and get your promised contribution ready in good time. I want it to be forthcoming as a generous gift, not as money wrung out of you.

I beg of you that when I do come I may not have to speak out and be peremptory; but my mind is made up to tackle certain people who have made up their minds that I move on the low level of the flesh.

I do live in the flesh, but I do not make war as the flesh does;

the weapons of my warfare are not weapons of the flesh, but divinely strong to demolish fortresses ??5 I demolish theories and any rampart thrown up to resist the knowledge of God, I take every project prisoner to make it obey Christ,

Even supposing I were to boast somewhat freely of my authority (and the Lord gave it to me for building you up, not for demolishing you), I would feel quite justified.

But I am not going to seem as if I were 'overawing you with a letter,' so to speak.