1 Corinthians 3:16-23

Living Bible

¹⁶ Don’t you realize that all of you together are the house of God, and that the Spirit of God lives among you in his house? ¹⁷ If anyone defiles and spoils God’s home, God will destroy him. For God’s home is holy and clean, and you are that home.

¹⁸ Stop fooling yourselves. If you count yourself above average in intelligence, as judged by this world’s standards, you had better put this all aside and be a fool rather than let it hold you back from the true wisdom from above. ¹⁹ For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As it says in the book of Job, God uses man’s own brilliance to trap him; he stumbles over his own “wisdom” and falls. ²⁰ And again, in the book of Psalms, we are told that the Lord knows full well how the human mind reasons and how foolish and futile it is.

²¹ So don’t be proud of following the wise men of this world.^[a] For God has already given you everything you need. ²² He has given you Paul and Apollos and Peter as your helpers. He has given you the whole world to use, and life and even death are your servants. He has given you all of the present and all of the future. All are yours, ²³ and you belong to Christ, and Christ is God’s.