First Epistle to the Corinthians - The New Testament

¹ And so, brothers, I was not able to talk to you as spiritual people; I had to talk to you as people still living by your natural inclinations, still infants in Christ;

² I fed you with milk and not solid food, for you were not yet able to take it -- and even now, you are still not able to,

³ for you are still living by your natural inclinations. As long as there are jealousy and rivalry among you, that surely means that you are still living by your natural inclinations and by merely human principles.

⁴ While there is one that says, 'I belong to Paul' and another that says, 'I belong to Apollos' are you not being only too human?

⁵ For what is Apollos and what is Paul? The servants through whom you came to believe, and each has only what the Lord has given him.

⁶ I did the planting, Apollos did the watering, but God gave growth.

⁷ In this, neither the planter nor the waterer counts for anything; only God, who gives growth.

⁸ It is all one who does the planting and who does the watering, and each will have the proper pay for the work that he has done.

⁹ After all, we do share in God's work; you are God's farm, God's building.

¹⁰ By the grace of God which was given to me, I laid the foundations like a trained master-builder, and someone else is building on them. Now each one must be careful how he does the building.

¹¹ For nobody can lay down any other foundation than the one which is there already, namely Jesus Christ.

¹² On this foundation, different people may build in gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay or straw

¹³ but each person's handiwork will be shown for what it is. The Day which dawns in fire will make it clear and the fire itself will test the quality of each person's work.

¹⁴ The one whose work stands up to it will be given his wages;

¹⁵ the one whose work is burnt down will suffer the loss of it, though he himself will be saved; he will be saved as someone might expect to be saved from a fire.

¹⁶ Do you not realise that you are a temple of God with the Spirit of God living in you?

¹⁷ If anybody should destroy the temple of God, God will destroy that person, because God's temple is holy; and you are that temple.

¹⁸ There is no room for self-delusion. Any one of you who thinks he is wise by worldly standards must learn to be a fool in order to be really wise.

¹⁹ For the wisdom of the world is folly to God. As scripture says: He traps the crafty in the snare of their own cunning

²⁰ and again: The Lord knows the plans of the wise and how insipid they are.

²¹ So there is to be no boasting about human beings: everything belongs to you,

²² whether it is Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, the world, life or death, the present or the future -- all belong to you;

²³ but you belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God.