1 Corinthians 12:11-24

English Standard Version

¹¹ All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, ^(A)who apportions to each one individually ^(B)as he wills.

One Body with Many Members

¹² For just as ^(C)the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, ^(D)so it is with Christ. ¹³ For ^(E)in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—^(F)Jews or Greeks, slaves^[a] or free—and ^(G)all were made to drink of one Spirit.

¹⁴ For the body does not consist of one member but of many. ¹⁵ If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁶ And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? ¹⁸ But as it is, ^(H)God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, ^(I)as he chose. ¹⁹ If all were a single member, where would the body be? ²⁰ As it is, there are many parts,^[b] yet one body.

²¹ The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” ²² On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, ²³ and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, ²⁴ which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it,