The Holy Bible

[2:1] When I came to you, my friends, to preach God's secret truth, I did not use big words and great learning.

[2:2] For while I was with you, I made up my mind to forget everything except Jesus Christ and especially his death on the cross.

[2:3] So when I came to you, I was weak and trembled all over with fear,

[2:4] and my teaching and message were not delivered with skillful words of human wisdom, but with convincing proof of the power of God's Spirit.

[2:5] Your faith, then, does not rest on human wisdom but on God's power.

[2:6] Yet I do proclaim a message of wisdom to those who are spiritually mature. But it is not the wisdom that belongs to this world or to the powers that rule this world—powers that are losing their power.

[2:7] The wisdom I proclaim is God's secret wisdom, which is hidden from human beings, but which he had already chosen for our glory even before the world was made.

[2:8] None of the rulers of this world knew this wisdom. If they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

[2:9] However, as the scripture says, “What no one ever saw or heard, what no one ever thought could happen, is the very thing God prepared for those who love him.”

[2:10] But it was to us that God made known his secret by means of his Spirit. The Spirit searches everything, even the hidden depths of God's purposes.

[2:11] It is only our own spirit within us that knows all about us; in the same way, only God's Spirit knows all about God.

[2:12] We have not received this world's spirit; instead, we have received the Spirit sent by God, so that we may know all that God has given us.

[2:13] So then, we do not speak in words taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, as we explain spiritual truths to those who have the Spirit.

[2:14] Whoever does not have the Spirit cannot receive the gifts that come from God's Spirit. Such a person really does not understand them, and they seem to be nonsense, because their value can be judged only on a spiritual basis.

[2:15] Whoever has the Spirit, however, is able to judge the value of everything, but no one is able to judge him.

[2:16] As the scripture says, “Who knows the mind of the Lord? Who is able to give him advice?” We, however, have the mind of Christ.

[3:1] As a matter of fact, my friends, I could not talk to you as I talk to people who have the Spirit; I had to talk to you as though you belonged to this world, as children in the Christian faith.

[3:2] I had to feed you milk, not solid food, because you were not ready for it. And even now you are not ready for it,

[3:3] because you still live as the people of this world live. When there is jealousy among you and you quarrel with one another, doesn't this prove that you belong to this world, living by its standards?

[3:4] When one of you says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos”—aren't you acting like worldly people?

[3:5] After all, who is Apollos? And who is Paul? We are simply God's servants, by whom you were led to believe. Each one of us does the work which the Lord gave him to do:

[3:6] I planted the seed, Apollos watered the plant, but it was God who made the plant grow.

[3:7] The one who plants and the one who waters really do not matter. It is God who matters, because he makes the plant grow.

[3:8] There is no difference between the one who plants and the one who waters; God will reward each one according to the work each has done.

[3:9] For we are partners working together for God, and you are God's field. You are also God's building.

[3:10] Using the gift that God gave me, I did the work of an expert builder and laid the foundation, and someone else is building on it. But each of you must be careful how you build.

[3:11] For God has already placed Jesus Christ as the one and only foundation, and no other foundation can be laid.

[3:12] Some will use gold or silver or precious stones in building on the foundation; others will use wood or grass or straw.

[3:13] And the quality of each person's work will be seen when the Day of Christ exposes it. For on that Day fire will reveal everyone's work; the fire will test it and show its real quality.

[3:14] If what was built on the foundation survives the fire, the builder will receive a reward.

[3:15] But if your work is burnt up, then you will lose it; but you yourself will be saved, as if you had escaped through the fire.

[3:16] Surely you know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you!

[3:17] God will destroy anyone who destroys God's temple. For God's temple is holy, and you yourselves are his temple.

[3:18] You should not fool yourself. If any of you think that you are wise by this world's standards, you should become a fool, in order to be really wise.

[3:19] For what this world considers to be wisdom is nonsense in God's sight. As the scripture says, “God traps the wise in their cleverness”;

[3:20] and another scripture says, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are worthless.”

[3:21] No one, then, should boast about what human beings can do. Actually everything belongs to you:

[3:22] Paul, Apollos, and Peter; this world, life and death, the present and the future—all these are yours,

[3:23] and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

[4:1] You should think of us as Christ's servants, who have been put in charge of God's secret truths.

[4:2] The one thing required of such servants is that they be faithful to their master.

[4:3] Now, I am not at all concerned about being judged by you or by any human standard; I don't even pass judgment on myself.

[4:4] My conscience is clear, but that does not prove that I am really innocent. The Lord is the one who passes judgment on me.

[4:5] So you should not pass judgment on anyone before the right time comes. Final judgment must wait until the Lord comes; he will bring to light the dark secrets and expose the hidden purposes of people's minds. And then all will receive from God the praise they deserve.

[4:6] For your sake, my friends, I have applied all this to Apollos and me, using the two of us as an example, so that you may learn what the saying means, “Observe the proper rules.” None of you should be proud of one person and despise another.

[4:7] Who made you superior to others? Didn't God give you everything you have? Well, then, how can you boast, as if what you have were not a gift?

[4:8] Do you already have everything you need? Are you already rich? Have you become kings, even though we are not? Well, I wish you really were kings, so that we could be kings together with you.

[4:9] For it seems to me that God has given the very last place to us apostles, like people condemned to die in public as a spectacle for the whole world of angels and of human beings.

[4:10] For Christ's sake we are fools; but you are wise in union with Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! We are despised, but you are honored!

[4:11] To this very moment we go hungry and thirsty; we are clothed in rags; we are beaten; we wander from place to place;

[4:12] we wear ourselves out with hard work. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure;

[4:13] when we are insulted, we answer back with kind words. We are no more than this world's garbage; we are the scum of the earth to this very moment!

[4:14] I write this to you, not because I want to make you feel ashamed, but to instruct you as my own dear children.

[4:15] For even if you have ten thousand guardians in your Christian life, you have only one father. For in your life in union with Christ Jesus I have become your father by bringing the Good News to you.

[4:16] I beg you, then, to follow my example.

[4:17] For this purpose I am sending to you Timothy, who is my own dear and faithful son in the Christian life. He will remind you of the principles which I follow in the new life in union with Christ Jesus and which I teach in all the churches everywhere.

[4:18] Some of you have become proud because you have thought that I would not be coming to visit you.

[4:19] If the Lord is willing, however, I will come to you soon, and then I will find out for myself the power which these proud people have, and not just what they say.

[4:20] For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of words but of power.

[4:21] Which do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a whip, or in a spirit of love and gentleness?

[5:1] Now, it is actually being said that there is sexual immorality among you so terrible that not even the heathen would be guilty of it. I am told that a man is sleeping with his stepmother!

[5:2] How, then, can you be proud? On the contrary, you should be filled with sadness, and the man who has done such a thing should be expelled from your fellowship.

[5:5] you are to hand this man over to Satan for his body to be destroyed, so that his spirit may be saved in the Day of the Lord.

[5:6] It is not right for you to be proud! You know the saying, “A little bit of yeast makes the whole batch of dough rise.”

[5:7] You must remove the old yeast of sin so that you will be entirely pure. Then you will be like a new batch of dough without any yeast, as indeed I know you actually are. For our Passover Festival is ready, now that Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.

[5:8] Let us celebrate our Passover, then, not with bread having the old yeast of sin and wickedness, but with the bread that has no yeast, the bread of purity and truth.

[5:9] In the letter that I wrote you I told you not to associate with immoral people.

[5:10] Now I did not mean pagans who are immoral or greedy or are thieves, or who worship idols. To avoid them you would have to get out of the world completely.

[5:11] What I meant was that you should not associate with a person who calls himself a believer but is immoral or greedy or worships idols or is a slanderer or a drunkard or a thief. Don't even sit down to eat with such a person.

[6:1] If any of you have a dispute with another Christian, how dare you go before heathen judges instead of letting God's people settle the matter?

[6:2] Don't you know that God's people will judge the world? Well, then, if you are to judge the world, aren't you capable of judging small matters?

[6:3] Do you not know that we shall judge the angels? How much more, then, the things of this life!

[6:4] If such matters come up, are you going to take them to be settled by people who have no standing in the church?

[6:5] Shame on you! Surely there is at least one wise person in your fellowship who can settle a dispute between fellow Christians.

[6:6] Instead, one Christian goes to court against another and lets unbelievers judge the case!

[6:7] The very fact that you have legal disputes among yourselves shows that you have failed completely. Would it not be better for you to be wronged? Would it not be better for you to be robbed?

[6:8] Instead, you yourselves wrong one another and rob one another, even other believers!

[6:9] Surely you know that the wicked will not possess God's Kingdom. Do not fool yourselves; people who are immoral or who worship idols or are adulterers or homosexual perverts

[6:10] or who steal or are greedy or are drunkards or who slander others or are thieves—none of these will possess God's Kingdom.

[6:11] Some of you were like that. But you have been purified from sin; you have been dedicated to God; you have been put right with God by the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

[6:12] Someone will say, “I am allowed to do anything.” Yes; but not everything is good for you. I could say that I am allowed to do anything, but I am not going to let anything make me its slave.

[6:13] Someone else will say, “Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food.” Yes; but God will put an end to both. The body is not to be used for sexual immorality, but to serve the Lord; and the Lord provides for the body.

[6:14] God raised the Lord from death, and he will also raise us by his power.

[6:15] You know that your bodies are parts of the body of Christ. Shall I take a part of Christ's body and make it part of the body of a prostitute? Impossible!

[6:16] Or perhaps you don't know that the man who joins his body to a prostitute becomes physically one with her? The scripture says quite plainly, “The two will become one body.”

[6:17] But he who joins himself to the Lord becomes spiritually one with him.

[6:18] Avoid immorality. Any other sin a man commits does not affect his body; but the man who is guilty of sexual immorality sins against his own body.

[6:19] Don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and who was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourselves but to God;

[6:20] he bought you for a price. So use your bodies for God's glory.

[7:1] Now, to deal with the matters you wrote about. A man does well not to marry.

[7:2] But because there is so much immorality, every man should have his own wife, and every woman should have her own husband.

[7:3] A man should fulfill his duty as a husband, and a woman should fulfill her duty as a wife, and each should satisfy the other's needs.

[7:4] A wife is not the master of her own body, but her husband is; in the same way a husband is not the master of his own body, but his wife is.

[7:5] Do not deny yourselves to each other, unless you first agree to do so for a while in order to spend your time in prayer; but then resume normal marital relations. In this way you will be kept from giving in to Satan's temptation because of your lack of self-control.

[7:6] I tell you this not as an order, but simply as a permission.

[7:7] Actually I would prefer that all of you were as I am; but each one has a special gift from God, one person this gift, another one that gift.

[7:8] Now, to the unmarried and to the widows I say that it would be better for you to continue to live alone as I do.

[7:9] But if you cannot restrain your desires, go ahead and marry—it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

[7:10] For married people I have a command which is not my own but the Lord's: a wife must not leave her husband;

[7:11] but if she does, she must remain single or else be reconciled to her husband; and a husband must not divorce his wife.

[7:12] To the others I say (I, myself, not the Lord): if a Christian man has a wife who is an unbeliever and she agrees to go on living with him, he must not divorce her.

[7:13] And if a Christian woman is married to a man who is an unbeliever and he agrees to go on living with her, she must not divorce him.

[7:14] For the unbelieving husband is made acceptable to God by being united to his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made acceptable to God by being united to her Christian husband. If this were not so, their children would be like pagan children; but as it is, they are acceptable to God.

[7:15] However, if the one who is not a believer wishes to leave the Christian partner, let it be so. In such cases the Christian partner, whether husband or wife, is free to act. God has called you to live in peace.

[7:16] How can you be sure, Christian wife, that you will not save your husband? Or how can you be sure, Christian husband, that you will not save your wife?

[7:17] Each of you should go on living according to the Lord's gift to you, and as you were when God called you. This is the rule I teach in all the churches.

[7:18] If a circumcised man has accepted God's call, he should not try to remove the marks of circumcision; if an uncircumcised man has accepted God's call, he should not get circumcised.

[7:19] For whether or not a man is circumcised means nothing; what matters is to obey God's commandments.

[7:20] Each of you should remain as you were when you accepted God's call.

[7:21] Were you a slave when God called you? Well, never mind; but if you have a chance to become free, use it.

[7:22] For a slave who has been called by the Lord is the Lord's free person; in the same way a free person who has been called by Christ is his slave.

[7:23] God bought you for a price; so do not become slaves of people.

[7:24] My friends, each of you should remain in fellowship with God in the same condition that you were when you were called.

[7:25] Now, concerning what you wrote about unmarried people: I do not have a command from the Lord, but I give my opinion as one who by the Lord's mercy is worthy of trust.

[7:26] Considering the present distress, I think it is better for a man to stay as he is.

[7:27] Do you have a wife? Then don't try to get rid of her. Are you unmarried? Then don't look for a wife.

[7:28] But if you do marry, you haven't committed a sin; and if an unmarried woman marries, she hasn't committed a sin. But I would rather spare you the everyday troubles that married people will have.

[7:29] What I mean, my friends, is this: there is not much time left, and from now on married people should live as though they were not married;

[7:30] those who weep, as though they were not sad; those who laugh, as though they were not happy; those who buy, as though they did not own what they bought;

[7:31] those who deal in material goods, as though they were not fully occupied with them. For this world, as it is now, will not last much longer.

[7:32] I would like you to be free from worry. An unmarried man concerns himself with the Lord's work, because he is trying to please the Lord.

[7:33] But a married man concerns himself with worldly matters, because he wants to please his wife;

[7:34] and so he is pulled in two directions. An unmarried woman or a virgin concerns herself with the Lord's work, because she wants to be dedicated both in body and spirit; but a married woman concerns herself with worldly matters, because she wants to please her husband.

[7:35] I am saying this because I want to help you. I am not trying to put restrictions on you. Instead, I want you to do what is right and proper, and to give yourselves completely to the Lord's service without any reservation.

[7:36] In the case of an engaged couple who have decided not to marry: if the man feels that he is not acting properly toward the young woman and if his passions are too strong and he feels that they ought to marry, then they should get married, as he wants to. There is no sin in this.

[7:37] But if a man, without being forced to do so, has firmly made up his mind not to marry, and if he has his will under complete control and has already decided in his own mind what to do—then he does well not to marry the young woman.

[7:38] So the man who marries does well, but the one who doesn't marry does even better.

[7:39] A married woman is not free as long as her husband lives; but if her husband dies, then she is free to be married to any man she wishes, but only if he is a Christian.

[7:40] She will be happier, however, if she stays as she is. That is my opinion, and I think that I too have God's Spirit.