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This is my defense to those who would put me on trial and interrogate me [concerning my authority as an apostle]: Have we not the right to our food and drink [at the expense of the churches]? Have we not the right to take along with us a believing wife, as do the rest of the apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Cephas (Peter)? Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to stop doing manual labor [in order to support our ministry]? [Consider this:] Who at any time serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its fruit? Or who tends a flock and does not use the milk of the flock?

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My defense to those who examine me is this: [a](A)Do we not have a right to eat and drink? [b](B)Do we not have a right to take along a [c]believing wife, even as the rest of the apostles and the (C)brothers of the Lord, and [d](D)Cephas? Or do only [e](E)Barnabas and I have no right to refrain from [f]working? Who at any time serves (F)as a soldier at his own expense? Who (G)plants a vineyard and does not eat its fruit? Or who tends a flock and does not [g]consume some of the milk of the flock?

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Footnotes

  1. 1 Corinthians 9:4 Lit It is not that we have no right to eat and drink, is it?
  2. 1 Corinthians 9:5 Lit It is not that we have no right to take along...Cephas, is it?
  3. 1 Corinthians 9:5 Lit sister, as a wife
  4. 1 Corinthians 9:5 Peter’s Aramaic name
  5. 1 Corinthians 9:6 Lit I and Barnabas
  6. 1 Corinthians 9:6 I.e., to support themselves
  7. 1 Corinthians 9:7 Lit eat from