1:1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother,
1:2 To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all those in every place who call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both their Lord and ours:
1:3 Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
1:4 I thank my God always for you, because of the grace of God which has been given you in Jesus Christ;
1:5 That in everything you have been enriched by him, in all speech, and in all knowledge;
1:6 So the testimony about Christ has been confirmed in you:
1:7 Therefore you lack no spiritual gift; as you await the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ:
1:8 Who shall also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
1:9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
1:10 Now I urge you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree, and that there be no divisions among you; but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
1:11 For it has been declared to me about you, my brethren, by Chloe's people, that there are quarrels among you.
1:12 What I mean to say is that every one of you says, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ.
1:13 Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
1:14 I thank God that I baptized none of you, except Crispus and Gaius;
1:15 Lest anyone should say that you had been baptized in my name.
1:16 (I also baptized the household of Stephanas: besides that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.)
1:17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with eloquent words of wisdom, lest the cross of Christ should be emptied of its power.
1:18 For the preaching of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness; but to those of us who are being saved it is the power of God.
1:19 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and frustrate the cleverness of the clever.
1:20 Where is the wise man? where is the scribe? where is the debater of this age? has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
1:21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world by its wisdom did not come to know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of our preaching to save those who believe.
1:22 For Jews require a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom:
1:23 But we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness;
1:24 But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
1:25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
1:26 For consider your calling, brethren: that not many were wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble:
1:27 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are mighty;
1:28 And God has chosen base things of the world, and things which are despised, and things which are not, to reduce to nothing things that are:
1:29 That no flesh should boast in his presence.
1:30 But because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and holiness, and redemption:
1:31 So that, just as it is written, Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.
2:1 And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with lofty speech or wisdom as I declared to you the testimony of God.
2:2 For I determined not to know anything among you, except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
2:3 And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.
2:4 And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
2:5 That your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.
2:6 Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the rulers of this world, who are being brought to nothing:
2:7 But we speak the wisdom of God, once secret and hidden, which God ordained for our glory before the ages:
2:8 Wisdom which none of the rulers of this world understood: for had they understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
2:9 But as it is written, Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love him.
2:10 But God has revealed them to us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.
2:11 For what man knows the thoughts of a man, except the spirit which is within the man? even so no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
2:12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is from God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us by God.
2:13 Of these things we speak, not in words taught by man's wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
2:14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness to him: neither can he understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
2:15 He who is spiritual judges the worth of all things, yet he himself is judged by no man.
2:16 For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.
3:1 And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of the flesh, as babes in Christ.
3:2 I have fed you with milk, and not with solid food: for until now you were not able to bear it, nor are you yet able.
3:3 For you are still fleshly: for while there is among you envy, and strife, are you not fleshly, and walking as mere men?
3:4 For while one says, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are you not mere men?
3:5 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each his task?
3:6 I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the growth.
3:7 So then, neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything; but only God who gives the growth.
3:8 Now he who plants and he who waters are equal: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour.
3:9 For we are labourers together with God: you are God's field, God's building.
3:10 According to the grace of God which is given to me, as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another builds upon it. But let every man take heed how he builds upon it.
3:11 For no other foundation can man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
3:12 Now if any man builds upon this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw;
3:13 Each man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall test the quality of every man's work.
3:14 If any man's work remains, which he has built upon it, he shall receive a reward.
3:15 If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; but only as through fire.
3:16 Do you not know that you are God's temple, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
3:17 If any man defiles God's temple, God shall destroy him; for the temple of God is holy, and you are that temple.
3:18 Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks he is wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.
3:19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He catches the wise in their own craftiness.
3:20 And again, The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.
3:21 Therefore, let no one glory in men. For all things are yours;
3:22 Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours;
3:23 And you are Christ's; and Christ is God's.
4:1 Let a man regard us in this manner, as servants of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.
4:2 Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy.
4:3 But with me it is a very small thing if I should be judged by you, or by any human court: in fact, I do not even judge my own self.
4:4 For I know of nothing against myself; yet I am not by this justified: but he who judges me is the Lord.
4:5 Therefore, judge nothing before the time; before the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the things hidden in darkness, and will disclose the motives of the heart: and then every man shall have his praise from God.
4:6 And these things, brethren, I have applied to myself and Apollos for your sakes; that through us you might learn not to go beyond that which is written, that none of you might become puffed up in favour of one against another.
4:7 For who makes you superior to another? and what do you have that you did not receive? now if you did receive it, why do you boast, as if you had not received it?
4:8 Already you are full, already you are rich, you have become as kings without us: and I would that you had become kings, that we might also reign with you.
4:9 For I think that God has exhibited us apostles last of all, as if we were condemned to death: for we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men.
4:10 We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ; we are weak, but you are strong; you are honoured, but we are despised.
4:11 Even to this present hour we both hunger and thirst, and are ill-clothed, and are buffeted, and are homeless;
4:12 And we labour, working with our own hands: when reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure it:
4:13 When slandered, we answer kindly; we have been made the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things, even to this day.
4:14 I do not write these things to shame you, but as my beloved children I warn you.
4:15 For though you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.
4:16 Therefore I urge you, be imitators of me.
4:17 For this reason I have sent to you Timothy, who is my beloved son, and faithful in the Lord, who shall remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach everywhere in every church.
4:18 Now some are puffed up, as though I were not coming to you.
4:19 But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord wills, and will find out, not the speech of those who are puffed up, but their power.
4:20 For the kingdom of God does not consist of talk, but of power.
4:21 What do you wish? shall I come to you with a rod, or in love, and in a spirit of gentleness?
5:1 It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and such immorality as does not even occur among the Gentiles, that one of you has his father's wife.
5:2 And you are puffed up, and have not mourned instead. Let him who has done this deed be removed from among you.
5:3 For I, though absent in body, am present in spirit, and have already judged him who has done this deed, just as though I were present.
5:4 In the name of our Lord Jesus [Christ], when you are gathered together, with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus,
5:5 Deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord Jesus.
5:6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?
5:7 Clean out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you really are unleavened. For Christ our passover has been sacrificed for us:
5:8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
5:9 I wrote to you in a letter not to keep company with the sexually immoral:
5:10 Not at all meaning the immoral of this world, or the covetous, or swindlers, or idolaters; for then you would have to go out of the world.
5:11 But now I write to you not to keep company with any man who is called a brother if he is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a slanderer, or a drunkard, or an swindler; with such a one do not even eat.
5:12 For what have I to do with judging those who are outside? are you not to judge those who are within?
5:13 Those who are outside God judges. Put out from among yourselves the wicked person.