The gospel of the Messiah, crucified, buried and risen

15 Let me remind you, brothers and sisters, about the good news which I announced to you. You received this good news, and you’re standing firm on it, ² and you are saved through it, if you hold fast the message I announced to you—unless it was for nothing that you believed!

³ What I handed on to you at the beginning, you see, was what I received, namely this: “The Messiah died for our sins in accordance with the Bible; ⁴ he was buried; he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Bible; ⁵ he was seen by Cephas, then by the Twelve; ⁶ then he was seen by over five hundred brothers and sisters at once, most of whom are still with us, though some fell asleep; ⁷ then he was seen by James, then by all the apostles; ⁸ and, last of all, as to one ripped from the womb, he appeared even to me.”

⁹ I’m the least of the apostles, you see. In fact, I don’t really deserve to be called “apostle” at all, because I persecuted God’s church! ¹⁰ But I am what I am because of God’s grace, and his grace to me wasn’t wasted. On the contrary. I worked harder than all of them—though it wasn’t me, but God’s grace which was with me. ¹¹ So whether it was me or them, that was the way we announced it, and that was the way you believed.