1 Corinthians 9:3-12

English Standard Version

³ This is my defense to those who would examine me. ^4 (A)Do we not have the right to eat and drink? ^5 (B)Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife,^[a] as do the other apostles and ^(C)the brothers of the Lord and ^(D)Cephas? ⁶ Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living? ^7 (E)Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? ^(F)Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock without getting some of the milk?

⁸ Do I say these things on human authority? Does not the Law say the same? ⁹ For it is written in the Law of Moses, ^(G)“You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God is concerned? ¹⁰ Does he not certainly speak for our sake? It was written ^(H)for our sake, because ^(I)the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing in the crop. ^11 (J)If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? ¹² If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more?

Nevertheless, ^(K)we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything ^(L)rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.