1 Corinthians 3–16

3And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto babes in Christ. ²I fed you with milk, not with meat; for ye were not yet able to bear it: nay, not even now are ye able; ³for ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you jealousy and strife, are ye not carnal, and do ye not walk after the manner of men? ⁴For when one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not men? ⁵What then is Apollos? and what is Paul? Ministers through whom ye believed; and each as the Lord gave to him. ⁶I planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. ⁷So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. ⁸Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: but each shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. ⁹For we are God’s fellow-workers: ye are God’s husbandry, God’s building.

¹⁰According to the grace of God which was given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder I laid a foundation; and another buildeth thereon. But let each man take heed how he buildeth thereon. ¹¹For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. ¹²But if any man buildeth on the foundation gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, stubble; ¹³each man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire itself shall prove each man’s work of what sort it is. ¹⁴If any man’s work shall abide which he built thereon, he shall receive a reward. ¹⁵If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as through fire.

¹⁶Know ye not that ye are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? ¹⁷If any man destroyeth the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, and such are ye.

¹⁸Let no man deceive himself. If any man thinketh that he is wise among you in this world, let him become a fool, that he may become wise. ¹⁹For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He that taketh the wise in their craftiness: ²⁰and again, The Lord knoweth the reasonings of the wise, that they are vain. ²¹Wherefore let no one glory in men. For all things are yours; ²²whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; ²³and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.

4Let a man so account of us, as of ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. ²Here, moreover, it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful. ³But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self. ⁴For I know nothing against myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord. ⁵Wherefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the hearts; and then shall each man have his praise from God.

⁶Now these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes; that in us ye might learn not to go beyond the things which are written; that no one of you be puffed up for the one against the other. ⁷For who maketh thee to differ? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? but if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it? ⁸Already are ye filled, already ye are become rich, ye have come to reign without us: yea and I would that ye did reign, that we also might reign with you. ⁹For, I think, God hath set forth us the apostles last of all, as men doomed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, both to angels and men. ¹⁰We are fools for Christ’s sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye have glory, but we have dishonor. ¹¹Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling-place; ¹²and we toil, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure; ¹³being defamed, we entreat: we are made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things, even until now.

¹⁴I write not these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children. ¹⁵For though ye have ten thousand tutors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I begat you through the gospel. ¹⁶I beseech you therefore, be ye imitators of me. ¹⁷For this cause have I sent unto you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, who shall put you in remembrance of my ways which are in Christ, even as I teach everywhere in every church. ¹⁸Now some are puffed up, as though I were not coming to you. ¹⁹But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord will; and I will know, not the word of them that are puffed up, but the power. ²⁰For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. ²¹What will ye? shall I come unto you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness?

5It is actually reported that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not even among the Gentiles, that one of you hath his father’s wife. ²And ye are puffed up, and did not rather mourn, that he that had done this deed might be taken away from among you. ³For I verily, being absent in body but present in spirit, have already as though I were present judged him that hath so wrought this thing, ⁴in the name of our Lord Jesus, ye being gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, ⁵to deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. ⁶Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? ⁷Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, even as ye are unleavened. For our passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ: ⁸wherefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

⁹I wrote unto you in my epistle to have no company with fornicators; ¹⁰not at all meaning with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous and extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world: ¹¹but as it is, I wrote unto you not to keep company, if any man that is named a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a one no, not to eat. ¹²For what have I to do with judging them that are without? Do not ye judge them that are within? ¹³But them that are without God judgeth. Put away the wicked man from among yourselves.

6Dare any of you, having a matter against his neighbor, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? ²Or know ye not that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world is judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? ³Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more, things that pertain to this life? ⁴If then ye have to judge things pertaining to this life, do ye set them to judge who are of no account in the church? ⁵I say this to move you to shame. What, cannot there be found among you one wise man who shall be able to decide between his brethren, ⁶but brother goeth to law with brother, and that before unbelievers? ⁷Nay, already it is altogether a defect in you, that ye have lawsuits one with another. Why not rather take wrong? why not rather be defrauded? ⁸Nay, but ye yourselves do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren. ⁹Or know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men, ¹⁰nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹And such were some of you: but ye were washed, but ye were sanctified, but ye were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.

¹²All things are lawful for me; but not all things are expedient. All things are lawful for me; but I will not be brought under the power of any. ¹³Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall bring to nought both it and them. But the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body: ¹⁴and God both raised the Lord, and will raise up us through his power. ¹⁵Know ye not that your bodies are members of Christ? shall I then take away the members of Christ, and make them members of a harlot? God forbid. ¹⁶Or know ye not that he that is joined to a harlot is one body? for, The twain, saith he, shall become one flesh. ¹⁷But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. ¹⁸Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. ¹⁹Or know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have from God? and ye are not your own; ²⁰for ye were bought with a price: glorify God therefore in your body.

7Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. ²But, because of fornications, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. ³Let the husband render unto the wife her due: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. ⁴The wife hath not power over her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power over his own body, but the wife. ⁵Defraud ye not one the other, except it be by consent for a season, that ye may give yourselves unto prayer, and may be together again, that Satan tempt you not because of your incontinency. ⁶But this I say by way of concession, not of commandment. ⁷Yet I would that all men were even as I myself. Howbeit each man hath his own gift from God, one after this manner, and another after that.

⁸But I say to the unmarried and to widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I. ⁹But if they have not continency,…