3 My brothers, I could not talk to you at first as to people who have the Spirit of God. But I talked to you as people who have the spirit of this world. I talked to you as people who are very new-born, baby Christians.

² I gave you milk to drink, not food to eat. You were not ready for food. And even now you are not ready for it.

³ You still have the spirit of this world in you. You are jealous of each other and you are quarrelling. The spirit of this world is still in you and you live like people of this world.

⁴ One says, `I belong to Paul.' Another says, `I belong to Apollos.' Does not that show that you have the spirit of this world?

⁵ After all, who is Apollos? And who is Paul? We both work for God. You believed because of the work we did. The Lord gave each of us our work to do.

⁶ I planted the seed. Apollos put water on the seed. But God made the seed grow.

⁷ So then the man who plants is nothing and the man who waters is nothing. God alone makes the seed grow.

⁸ The man who plants and the man who waters are equal. Each one will be paid for his own work.

⁹ We work together for God. You are God's farm. You are God's house.

¹⁰ I built the lower walls of the house because God showed me the best way to do it. Now another man builds on top of this foundation. Each man must take care how he builds on it.

¹¹ Jesus Christ himself is the foundation. No one can make another one.

¹² People build with gold, silver, very fine stones, wood, grass, or straw on top of the foundation.

¹³ But the day will come when everyone's work can be seen. Their work will be tested by fire and the fire will show what kind of work each one did.

¹⁴ If the work a man did is not burned up in the fire, he will be paid for his work.

¹⁵ But if a man's work is burned up, he will lose everything. He himself will be saved, like a man pulled out of the fire.

¹⁶ You know that you are God's house. The spirit of God lives in you.

¹⁷ God will punish anyone who spoils his house. His house is holy, and you are the house.

¹⁸ Do not be fooled. If any one of you thinks that he is wise in the things of this world, he should count himself as not being wise. Then he would really be wise.

¹⁹ The things that look wise to the people of this world look foolish to God. The holy writings say, `He catches the wise people in their own tricks.'

²⁰ It also says, `The Lord knows that the wise men's thoughts are good for nothing.'

²¹ So do not be proud of men. Everything belongs to you.

²² Paul, Apollos, Peter, the world, life, death, the things which are now, and the things which are to come, everything is yours!

²³ And you belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God!

4 People should look at us as men who are servants of Christ. We take care of the secret things of God.

² A man who takes care of things must be a person his master can trust.

³ As for me, I care very little what you think about me or how any man judges me. I do not even judge myself.

⁴ I do not know of anything wrong in me, but that does not say I am right. The Lord is my judge.

⁵ So do not judge me before it is time. Wait until the Lord comes. The things which have been kept hidden in the dark he will bring out into the light. He will show what is in people's hearts. At that time God will tell each man how good his work is.

⁶ My brothers, I have said these things about Apollos and myself so that you will learn from us to live the way the holy writings say. Then you will not be proud and say, `This teacher is better than that one.'

⁷ If you are better, who made you that way? Everything you have was given to you. So then, why are you proud of it? Was it not given to you?

⁸ So you think you now have everything you need and are rich! You think you are kings and do not need us! I wish that you really were kings. Then we would be kings along with you.

⁹ It seems to me that God has put us apostles at the end of the line. We are like men who are to be put to death. The whole world, angels and men, look at us.

¹⁰ We are fools for Christ's sake! But you think Christ has made you wise. We are weak, but you are strong! You have glory, we have shame!

¹¹ Even now we are hungry and thirsty. We need clothes. We are beaten and we have no home.

¹² We work hard with our hands. People curse us, but we bless them. They trouble us much, but we must take it.

¹³ They talk behind our backs, but we still try to win them. People treat us as a dirt pile, the rubbish of the world. And they still do these things.

¹⁴ I do not write these things to make you ashamed. But you are my dear children and I want to teach you.

¹⁵ Even if you have ten thousand people to take care of you as Christians, yet you do not have many fathers. I am your Christian father because I brought you the good news.

¹⁶ So I beg you, do as I do.

¹⁷ That is why I am sending Timothy to you. I love Timothy very much. He is my Christian son. I can trust him. He will tell you again my Christian ways of living. I teach these same ways in every church meeting everywhere.

¹⁸ Some of you are proud of yourselves. You think I am not coming to visit you.

¹⁹ But I will come soon if it is the Lord's will. Then I will find, not the talk of those proud people, but their power.

²⁰ The place where God rules is not a matter of talk, but of power.

²¹ Which do you want? Shall I come to you with a stick to beat you, or shall I come with love and a kind spirit?

5 I have heard a very bad report about you. I hear there are wrong sexual ways among you. Even the people who are not Jews do not allow wrong sex such as this among them. A man is living with his father's wife!

² Can it be that you are still proud? This should make you very sad. The man who has done this should be put out of the church meeting.

³ My body is not with you, but my spirit is. Just as if I were right there, I have decided what to do about the man who did such a thing as this.

⁴ Do this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. When you meet together my spirit will be with you. Then, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, give this man over to Satan. Let Satan punish his body. By this the man's spirit may yet be saved when the Lord Jesus comes.

⁵ Surely it is not right for you to be proud. Do you not know that only a little yeast in the bread will make all the bread rise?

⁶ Clean out the old yeast so that you will become like new bread. You are free from the old things. Christ, the Passover Lamb, has been killed for us.

⁷ Let us then remember the feast of Passover and have our bread. But let us not have our feast with old yeast in the bread. To do bad and wrong things is like that old yeast. But let us have it with new bread that has no old yeast in it. To be honest and true is like the new bread.

⁸ I wrote a letter to you. I told you not to be friends with people who use sex the wrong way [with a person they are not married to].

⁹ I did not mean the people of the world [people who are not Christians] - some of them use sex the wrong way; or always want more things; or steal; or worship idols. To keep away from them altogether would mean you would have to go out of the world.

¹⁰ But I wrote to you not to be friends with anyone who says he is a Christian and uses wrong sex, or always wants more, or has idols, or curses, or drinks too much strong drink, or steals. I told you not even to sit down to eat with such a person.

¹¹ Why should I judge the people who are outside the church? You are to judge the church people.

¹² God judges those who are outside. The holy writings say, `Send the bad person away from among you.'

6 When one of you has some complaint against a Christian brother, why does he take him to be judged by those who are not Christians? Why does he not take him to God's people?

² Do you not know that some day God's people will judge the world? If you are going to judge the world, can you not judge small things now?

³ Do you not know that we shall judge angels? Then we should surely be able to judge things in this life!

⁴ So if you have complaints about things in this life, why do you take them to those who are not church people?

⁵ Shame on you! Are none of you wise enough to judge between two Christian brothers?

⁶ But now one Christian brother takes another Christian brother to be judged by people who are not Christians.

⁷ It is wrong for you to take each other to court at all. You should be willing to take wrong. It would be better to lose.

⁸ Instead, you are doing wrong to your own Christian brothers.

^9-10 Do you not know that bad people will have no part in the kingdom where God rules? Do not be fooled. There are some people who will not have part in that place. They are those who commit adultery of any kind, those who have idols, or steal, or are always wanting more, or talk wrong things about people, or drink plenty of strong drink, or take things by force, or curse.

¹¹ Some of you were like that. But now you have been washed and made holy. The Spirit of our God has made you right by the name of the Lord Jesus.

¹² I am free to do anything I want, but some things are not good for me to do. I am free to do anything, but I will not become a slave of anything.

¹³ `Food is for the body, and the body is for food.' But God will bring both to an end. The body is not made to be used for wrong sex behaviour, but for the Lord. And the Lord is for the body.

¹⁴ God raised up the Lord and he will also raise us up by his power.

¹⁵ Do you not know that your bodies belong to Christ? Shall I take parts of Christ and join them to a bad woman? No, never!

¹⁶ Do you not know that the person who joins himself to a bad woman becomes one person with her? The holy writings say, `The two people shall be like one body.'

¹⁷ But the one who joins himself with the Lord becomes one spirit with him.

¹⁸ Run away from every kind of wrong sex! Every other wrong thing which a person does is done outside of his body. But the person who uses sex the wrong way does a wrong thing to his own body.

¹⁹ Do you not know that your body is the house of the Holy Spirit who lives in you? God gave the Holy Spirit to you. Remember, you do not belong to yourself.

²⁰ But you were bought and paid for. So then, bring glory to God with your bodies.

7 You wrote me a letter. Here is my answer to the things in the letter. It is good if a man has nothing to do with a woman.

² But wrong sex is always a danger to us. So it is better for each man to have his own wife and each woman to have her own husband.

³ The husband should give his wife what is right. So also, the wife should give her husband what is right.

⁴ The wife does not have full right over her own body. But her husband has a right to it. In the same way, the husband does not have full right over his own body. But his wife has a right to it.

⁵ Do not keep from the other what is right for them to have. It is all right to stay from each other for a while, if you both agree to it. Then you will have time for prayer. Afterwards, come together again. If you do not, Satan might tempt you to do wrong.

⁶ I say you may do this. I do not say that you must do it.

⁷ I wish that all men were like I am. But God has made everyone different. One man can live one way and another man can live another way.

⁸ Here is what I say to those who are not married and to those whose husbands are dead. It is good for them to stay the way I am.

⁹ But if they cannot keep themselves under control, then they should marry. It is better to marry than to burn with desire for sex.

¹⁰ And here is what I say to those who are married. (And yet it is not what I say. It is what the Lord has said.) The wife may not leave her husband.

¹¹ But if she does leave him, she must not marry again, or she must come back to her husband again. And the husband may not send away his wife.

¹² Here is what I say to other people. (This is my word, not the Lord's.) Perhaps a Christian brother has a wife who is not a Christian. If she wants to stay with him, then he should not send her away.

¹³ Perhaps a woman has a husband who is not a Christian. If he wants to stay with her, then the woman should not leave him.

¹⁴ The husband who is not a Christian is made holy by the wife. And the wife who is not a Christian is made holy by the husband. If this were not so, then your children would not be holy. But they are holy.

¹⁵ If the one who is not a Christian really wants to leave, let him go. The Christian husband or wife is free then. God has called us to live in peace.

¹⁶ Wife, you do not know. Perhaps you will win your husband to the Lord. Husband, you do not know. Perhaps you will win your wife to the Lord.

¹⁷ Only let me say this. Every man should go on living in the way which the Lord chooses for him. He should go on as he was when God called him to be a Christian. I say this to people in all the churches.

¹⁸ If a man was already circumcised when God called him, he should not try to change the marks of it. If a man was not circumcised when God called him, he should not be circumcised.

¹⁹ It does not matter whether one is circumcised or not. The thing that matters is doing what God says we must do.

²⁰ Everyone should stay the way he was when God called him.

²¹ If you were a slave when God called you, do not let that trouble you. But if there is some way for you to get free, then do so.

²² If a man was a slave when the Lord called him, he is the Lord's free man. So also if a man was free when he was called, he is Christ's slave.

²³ You were bought and paid for. Do not become slaves of men!

²⁴ So, Christian brothers, everyone should go on living as he was when God called him. But now he lives with God.

²⁵ Here is what I say about those who are not married. (I have no law from the Lord about this. But here is what I think. You can trust me because the Lord has helped me.)

²⁶ I think that, since there is now trouble in the world, it is good for each one to stay as he is.

²⁷ If you have married a wife, do not try to be free from her. If you have no wife, do not look for one.

²⁸ But, if you marry, it is not wrong. And if a woman marries, it is not wrong. People who marry will have trouble in this life. And I want to keep you out of it.

²⁹ Here, my brothers, is what I mean. The time is short. In the time that is left, men who have wives should live as though they did not.

³⁰ People who cry should live as though they were not sad. People who laugh should live as though they were not glad. People who buy things should live as though they did not own them.

³¹ And people who are busy with things in this world should not be too busy. The world as we see it is passing away.

³² I want your minds to be free. The man who is not married thinks about the things of the Lord. He tries to please the Lord.

³³ But the man who is married thinks about the things of this world. He tries to please his wife.

³⁴ In the same way, there is a difference between the woman who is married and the one who is not. The woman who is not married thinks about the things of the Lord. She wants her body and her spirit to be holy. But the married woman thinks about the things of this life. She tries to please her husband.

³⁵ I say this to help you, not to make it hard for you. I want to show you what is good. I do not want anything to stop you from serving the Lord.

³⁶ And if a man feels that he is doing the right thing for the woman he is to marry, then let him marry her. That is, if she is no longer young, and if he wants her very much. Then he must do as he thinks best. It is not wrong for him to do it.

³⁷ But the man who has made up his mind not to marry his woman will do well. That is, if he does not have to marry her, and is able to control himself, and if he is sure about it in his own mind.

³⁸ So the man who marries his woman will do what is good. But the man who does not marry her will do better.

³⁹ A wife may not leave her husband as long as he is living. But if he dies, she is free to marry any man she wants. Only this, he must be a Christian.

⁴⁰ But I think that she is happier if she stays as she is and does not marry again. (I think too that I am saying what the Spirit of God wants me to say in this matter.)

8 Now here is what I say about food given to idols. We all know something about this matter. Yet knowledge makes us proud. Love is the real teacher.

² If anyone thinks he knows much, then he does not know what he really should know.

³ But if anyone loves God, then God knows him.

⁴ So here is what I say about eating food that has been given to idols or false gods. We know that an idol really is nothing in this world. There is only one true and living God.

⁵ There are things in the sky and on earth which are called gods. Yes, there are many gods and lords.

⁶ Yet for us there is only one God. He is the Father. All things come from him. He is the one for whom we live. And there is only one Lord. He is Jesus Christ. He made all things. He is the one who gives us life.

⁷ But not every Christian knows these things. Some of them have always believed in idols. And when they eat food which has been given to an idol, they think the food belongs to the idol. And because they are weak Christians they feel they do wrong when they eat it.

⁸ One thing is sure, food will not bring us closer to God. If we eat it, it will not make us right with God. And if we do not eat, it will not make us wrong.

⁹ Perhaps you feel it is all right for you to do it. But be careful! It might make the weak Christian do wrong.

¹⁰ You know it is not wrong for you to eat these things. But if a weak Christian sees you eating in the idol's house, he will also want to eat food that has been given to an idol. He will do what is against his own belief.

¹¹ You know the truth, and yet your knowledge will make your weak brother do wrong. You have hurt the faith of a brother, for whom Christ died.

¹² In this way you do wrong to your brother. You hurt him because he is weak. And in so doing you do wrong to Christ.

¹³ If eating such food makes my brother do wrong, I will never eat it. I do not want my brother to do wrong.

9 Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you people not proof of the work I do for the Lord?

² If other people do not call me an apostle, yet surely I am an apostle to you. You people are the proof that I am an apostle for the Lord.

³ Here is what I say to the people who say wrong things about me.

⁴ Do we not have the right to eat and drink?

⁵ Do we not have the right to have a Christian wife with us as do the other apostles, and the brothers of our Lord, and Cephas?

⁶ Must Barnabas and I work for our living though the other apostles do not?

⁷ What soldier pays for his own food when he goes to war? Who plants a garden and does not eat what grows in it? Who takes care of animals and does not get any of the milk?

⁸ Am I saying only what men say? Does not God's law also say the same?

⁹ Moses wrote in his books of the law of God, `Do not tie shut the mouth of an ox when it is treading the grain.' Does God care about the oxen?

¹⁰ Does he not say this altogether for our sakes? Yes, he said it for our sakes. There are people who plough the ground and beat the grain. They do this work because they believe they will have a part of the food for themselves.

¹¹ We have planted seed by teaching you the good things of the Spirit. So we should receive something from you to help us to pay for our living.

¹² If it is right for other teachers to receive something from you, then we have more of a right to receive it. But we did not use our right. Instead, we do anything we can so that we will not stop the good news of Christ from going out.

¹³ You know there are men who do the work in the temple. They get their food from the temple. Those who help to make sacrifices in the temple get a part of the sacrifice.

¹⁴ It is the same with those who work telling the good news. The Lord said they should get their living from that work.

¹⁵ And I am not writing this to ask you to do these things for me. I would rather die! It is something I am proud of, and no one shall take it away from me.

¹⁶ My telling the good news is not something for me to be proud of. It is something I must do. Yes, it would be very, very wrong for me if I did not tell the good news.

¹⁷ If I do it because I want to do it, I get my pay. But if I do not want to do it, it is still my duty to do it.

¹⁸ So what is my pay? My pay is to tell the good news and not be paid for it! That is why I do not use my right to take pay for telling the good news.

¹⁹ Even though I am no one's slave, yet I have made myself a slave to everyone. I have done this so that I might win more people to Christ.

²⁰ When I was with the Jews, I lived like the Jews, so that I might win the Jews to Christ. I was not under the law. But I lived as if I was under the law of the Jews. I did this so that I might win to Christ those who are under the law.

²¹ When I was with those who do not have the law of the Jews, I lived as if I did not have the law of the Jews. I did this so that I might win them also. Of course, I myself have laws. I follow the laws of Christ.

²² When I was with weak people, I lived like a weak person. I did this so that I might win weak people to Christ. I lived like all kinds of people to save some of them.

²³ I do all this for the good news, so that I also will have some of its blessing.

²⁴ You know when people are running a race, they all run. But only one man will win. The way you should run is to run to win.

²⁵ Everyone who wants to show his strength must control himself in every way. They do it for a prize that will spoil. But what we do, we do for a reward that will never, never spoil.

²⁶ So I do not run as if I did not know where I was going. And I do not fight like a man just beating the air.

²⁷ But I control my own body really well. I make my body obey me. After telling others the good news, I myself do not want to be left out.

10 My brothers, here is something you should know. Long ago, all our fathers were led by the cloud of God over them. They all went through the Red Sea.

² It was as if they were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.

³ They all ate the same food from the Spirit.

⁴ They all drank the same water sent by the Spirit. The water they drank came from a Rock of the Spirit which went with them. That Rock was Christ.

⁵ But God was not pleased with most of them. They died in the wilderness.

⁶ This teaches us not to want wrong things as they did.

⁷ Do not worship idols, as some of them did. The holy writings say, `The people sat down to eat and drink. Then they got up and danced.'

⁸ We must not use sex the wrong way as some of them did. Twenty-three thousand people died in one day!

⁹ We must not test the Lord, as some of them did. They were bitten by bad snakes and died!

¹⁰ Do not grumble, as some of them did. They were killed by the Angel of Death!

¹¹ These things happened to them to teach other people. They were written in the holy writings to teach us who are living in the last days of the world.

¹² Therefore, when a person thinks, `I am strong; I can stand,' let that person be careful, or he will fall.

¹³ No testing has come to you that other people do not have. But God will not fail you. He will not allow the testing to be too hard for you. No. When the testing comes, God will make a way out for you, so that you can go through the testing.

¹⁴ So then, my dear brothers, do not worship idols.

¹⁵ I talk to you as people with good sense. Decide for yourselves about what I say.

¹⁶ We ask God to bless the cup at the Lord's supper. When we drink from this cup it means that the blood of Christ is for us all. We break the bread. When we eat this bread, it means that the body of Christ is for us all.

¹⁷ The bread is all one loaf. In the same way, we are many people but we are one body. We all eat from the same loaf.

¹⁸ See what the Jews do. Those who eat the sacrifices all eat things that are sacrificed.

¹⁹ What do I mean by saying this? Is the food that has been given to idols really something holy? Or is an idol really something like God?

²⁰ No. What I mean is this. Those people give the food to bad spirits and not to God. I do not want you to have anything to do with bad spirits.

²¹ You cannot drink from the cup of the Lord and from the cup of bad spirits. You cannot eat food at the table of the Lord and at the table of bad spirits.

²² Do we want to make the Lord jealous? Are we stronger than he is? No!

²³ We are free to do anything we want to do. Yes, but some things do not make people better. It is better if we do not do such things.

²⁴ A person must not think only of himself. But he should think of the other person as well.

²⁵ Eat any meat that is sold at the market. Do not ask any questions about it because you think, `Is it wrong to eat it?'

²⁶ The holy writings say, `The earth belongs to the Lord and everything that is in it.'

²⁷ If one who is not a believer asks you to come and eat, if you want to go, then eat the food he gives you. Do not ask any questions about it because you fear it might be wrong to eat it.

²⁸ But if anyone says to you, `This food has been given to an idol,' then do not eat it. Do not eat it because of the one who told you and because it might seem wrong. I mean it might seem wrong, not to you, but to him.

²⁹ Since I am free, is it wrong for me to eat just because someone else thinks it is?

³⁰ I thank God for my food. So why should anyone say it is wrong for me to eat what I thank God for?

³¹ So, whether you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do everything to bring praise to God.

³² Do nothing that will make Jews, or Greeks, or those who belong to the church of God, turn away from God.

³³ I, also, try to please everyone in all I do. I do not think of what will be good for me, but I think of what will be good for many people. I want them to be saved.

11 Do as I do, for I am doing as Christ did.

² You are doing well. You remember everything I told you. And you are doing what I taught you to do.

³ But I want you to know this. Christ is the head of every man. The husband is the head of the wife. And God is the head of Christ.

⁴ Any man who talks to God or speaks words from God with his head covered brings shame on his head.

⁵ But any woman who talks to God or speaks words from God with her head not covered brings shame on her head. She is just the same as a woman who has cut off all her hair.

⁶ If a woman does not cover her head, she might as well cut off her hair. But if it is a shame for a woman to cut off her hair, or to shave her head, then she should have her head covered.

⁷ A man does not need to cover his head because he was made like God is. Man is God's glory. Woman is man's glory.

⁸ Man was not made from woman, but woman was made from man.

⁹ And man was not made for woman, but woman was made for man.

¹⁰ She should show this by having her head covered, because of the angels.

¹¹ But the Lord did not make woman without man, and he did not make man without woman.

¹² As woman comes from man, so man is born by woman. And everything comes from God.

¹³ What do you think? Does it look right for a woman to talk to God in public with her head not covered?

¹⁴ It would be a shame for a man to have long hair. Everyone knows this.

¹⁵ But long hair is something for the woman to be proud of. Her hair has been given to her for a covering.

¹⁶ Does anyone still want to quarrel about this matter? This is what we do. And this is what the churches of God do also.

¹⁷ In the next thing I have to talk about, I cannot say that you are doing well. Your meeting together is more bad than good.

¹⁸ First, I hear that in the church meeting you divide yourselves into groups. I think this may be true.

¹⁹ You also have groups of people who do not think the same way. Because of them you will soon learn which people please God the most.

²⁰ When you meet together, it is not the Lord's supper that you eat.

²¹ People take their own food and eat it without waiting. One gets nothing to eat. Another person drinks too much.

²² Do you not have your own homes where you can eat and drink? Do you have no respect for the church of God? Do you want to make poor people ashamed? What shall I say to you? Shall I say you are doing well? No, you are not doing well in this matter!

²³ The Lord gave me what I taught you. This is what it was. On the night when the Lord Jesus was sold to his enemies, he took bread.

²⁴ He thanked God for it. Then he broke it and said, `Take this bread and eat it. This is my body which is broken for you. Do this so that you will remember me.'

²⁵ In the same way, after they had eaten, he took the cup. He said, `This cup is the new agreement made by my blood. Every time you drink from this cup, do it to remember me.'

²⁶ Every time you eat this bread and drink from this cup you tell about the Lord's death, until he comes again.

²⁷ So then, when anyone eats the bread and drinks from the cup in a way that is not right, he has done wrong to the body and blood of the Lord.

²⁸ Each one must look into his own heart carefully. When he has done that, he may eat the bread and drink from the cup.

²⁹ The person who eats and drinks in a wrong way will be punished. He does not take it as the Lord's body.

³⁰ That is why many of you are weak and sick. Many have died.

³¹ But if we took time to look into our hearts first, then we would not be punished.

³² When we are punished, the Lord is teaching us to do right, so that we will not be punished with the rest of the people of the world.

³³ So, my Christian brothers, when you come together to eat the Lord's supper, wait on your turn.

³⁴ If a man is hungry, he should eat at home. Then when you meet, you will not be found in the wrong. There are other matters. I will talk about them when I come to see you.