1 Corinthians 9
9:1Am I not an apostle? Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord?
9:2If to others I am not an apostle, but indeed I am to you; for you are the seal of my commission in the Lord.
9:3My defense to the ones questioning me is this.
9:4Do we not have authority to eat and to drink?
9:5Do we not have authority to lead about a sister a wife, as also the rest of the apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?
9:6Or only I and Barnabas have not authority to not work?
9:7Who soldiers by his own rations at any time? Who plants a vineyard, and from the fruit of it does not eat? or who tends a flock, and from the milk of the flock does not eat?
9:8Is it according to a man these things I speak, or does not also the law say these things?
9:9For in the law of Moses it has been written, You shall not muzzle an ox threshing. Is not the ox a care to God?
9:10Or because of us assuredly it says? For because of us it was written that, The one plowing ought to plow in hope, and the one threshing in hope is to partake of the thing of his hope.
9:11If we sowed the spiritual things to you, is it a great thing if we harvest your fleshly things?
9:12If others partake of the authority over you, should not we more? But we did not use this authority; but all things we hold off, that we should not give any hindrance to the good news of the Christ.
9:13Do you not know that the ones working at the temple shall eat the consecrated things? and the ones taking care of the altar receive a portion of the altar?
9:14So also the Lord set in order for the ones announcing the good news, to live from the announcing of the good news.
9:15But I used none of these things. But I did not write these things, that thus it should happen with me. For it is good for me rather to die than that anyone should nullify my boasting.
9:16For if I announce good news, there is not a boasting to me; for a necessity is pressed upon me; but it is woe to me if I should not announce good news.
9:17For if I willingly do this, I have a wage; but if unwillingly, I am entrusted with a management.
9:18What then to me is the wage? That announcing good news free I should establish the good news of the Christ, for the not abusing my authority in the good news.
9:19For being free from all, to all I enslaved myself, that the many more I should gain.
9:20And I became to the Jews as a Jew, that I should gain the Jews; to the ones under law, as under law, that the ones under law I should gain;
9:21to the lawless ones, as a lawless one, (not being lawless to God, but lawful to Christ), that I should gain the lawless ones.
9:22I became to the weak as weak, that the weak I should gain. To all these I have become all things, that assuredly some I should deliver.
9:23But this I do on account of the good news, that I should become a fellow-partaker with him.
9:24Do you not know that the ones running in the stadium, all indeed run, but one receives the victory prize? Thus you run that you should overtake!
9:25But every one struggling, in all things controls himself; that indeed then that a corruptible crown they should receive; but we an incorruptible crown.
9:26I therefore so run, as not uncertainly; so I box, as not flaying the air.
9:27But I bruise my body, and bring it into slavery, lest to others having proclaimed, myself I should be debased.