²⁷ and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave,

²⁶ But not so with you; rather, the greatest among you must become like the youngest and the leader like one who serves.^(A)

Who Is the Greatest?

³³ Then they came to Capernaum, and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” ³⁴ But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest.^{(A) 35} He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”^(B)

⁵ For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’s sake.^(A)

⁴ Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

¹⁹ For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might gain all the more.^{(A) 20} To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to gain Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might gain those under the law. ²¹ To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not outside God’s law but am within Christ’s law) so that I might gain those outside the law.^{(B) 22} To the weak I became weak, so that I might gain the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. ²³ I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I might become a partner in it.

³⁴ You know for yourselves that I worked with my own hands to support myself and my companions.^{(A) 35} In all this I have given you an example that by such work we must support the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, for he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”^(B)

¹⁵ I will most gladly spend and be spent for you. If I love you more, am I to be loved less?^(A)

²³ Are they ministers of Christ? I am talking like a madman—I am a better one: with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless floggings, and often near death.^{(A) 24} Five times I have received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one.^{(B) 25} Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea;^{(C) 26} on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters;^{(D) 27} in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food,^[a] cold and naked.^(E)

⁵ I think that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles.^(A)