1 Corinthians 3-5

World English Bible

3 Brothers, I couldn’t speak to you as to spiritual, but as to fleshly, as to babies in Christ. ² I fed you with milk, not with solid food, for you weren’t yet ready. Indeed, you aren’t ready even now, ³ for you are still fleshly. For insofar as there is jealousy, strife, and factions among you, aren’t you fleshly, and don’t you walk in the ways of men? ⁴ For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” aren’t you fleshly?

⁵ Who then is Apollos, and who is Paul, but servants through whom you believed, and each as the Lord gave to him? ⁶ I planted. Apollos watered. But God gave the increase. ⁷ So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. ⁸ Now he who plants and he who waters are the same, but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. ⁹ For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s farming, God’s building.

¹⁰ According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another builds on it. But let each man be careful how he builds on it. ¹¹ For no one can lay any other foundation than that which has been laid, which is Jesus Christ. ¹² But if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, ¹³ each man’s work will be revealed. For the Day will declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire itself will test what sort of work each man’s work is. ¹⁴ If any man’s work remains which he built on it, he will receive a reward. ¹⁵ If any man’s work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, but as through fire.

¹⁶ Don’t you know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? ¹⁷ If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is holy, which you are.

¹⁸ Let no one deceive himself. If anyone thinks that he is wise among you in this world, let him become a fool that he may become wise. ¹⁹ For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He has taken the wise in their craftiness.”^{(A) 20} And again, “The Lord knows the reasoning of the wise, that it is worthless.”^{(B) 21} Therefore let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, ²² whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come. All are yours, ²³ and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.

4 So let a man think of us as Christ’s servants and stewards of God’s mysteries. ² Here, moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful. ³ But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you, or by a human court. Yes, I don’t even judge my own self. ⁴ For I know nothing against myself. Yet I am not justified by this, but he who judges me is the Lord. ⁵ Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each man will get his praise from God.

⁶ Now these things, brothers, I have in a figure transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes, that in us you might learn not to think beyond the things which are written, that none of you be puffed up against one another. ⁷ For who makes you different? And what do you have that you didn’t receive? But if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?

⁸ You are already filled. You have already become rich. You have come to reign without us. Yes, and I wish that you did reign, that we also might reign with you! ⁹ For I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last of all, like men sentenced to death. For we are made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and men. ¹⁰ We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You have honor, but we have dishonor. ¹¹ Even to this present hour we hunger, thirst, are naked, are beaten, and have no certain dwelling place. ¹² We toil, working with our own hands. When people curse us, we bless. Being persecuted, we endure. ¹³ Being defamed, we entreat. We are made as the filth of the world, the dirt wiped off by all, even until now.

¹⁴ I don’t write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children. ¹⁵ For though you have ten thousand tutors in Christ, you don’t have many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, I became your father through the Good News. ¹⁶ I beg you therefore, be imitators of me. ¹⁷ Because of this I have sent Timothy to you, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, who will remind you of my ways which are in Christ, even as I teach everywhere in every assembly. ¹⁸ Now some are puffed up, as though I were not coming to you. ¹⁹ But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord is willing. And I will know, not the word of those who are puffed up, but the power. ²⁰ For God’s Kingdom is not in word, but in power. ²¹ What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness?

5 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles, that one has his father’s wife. ² You are arrogant, and didn’t mourn instead, that he who had done this deed might be removed from among you. ³ For I most certainly, as being absent in body but present in spirit, have already, as though I were present, judged him who has done this thing. ⁴ In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together with my spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, ⁵ you are to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

⁶ Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole lump? ⁷ Purge out the old yeast, that you may be a new lump, even as you are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed in our place. ⁸ Therefore let’s keep the feast, not with old yeast, neither with the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

⁹ I wrote to you in my letter to have no company with sexual sinners; ¹⁰ yet not at all meaning with the sexual sinners of this world, or with the covetous and extortionists, or with idolaters, for then you would have to leave the world. ¹¹ But as it is, I wrote to you not to associate with anyone who is called a brother who is a sexual sinner, or covetous, or an idolater, or a slanderer, or a drunkard, or an extortionist. Don’t even eat with such a person. ¹² For what do I have to do with also judging those who are outside? Don’t you judge those who are within? ¹³ But those who are outside, God judges. “Put away the wicked man from among yourselves.”^(C)