Beginning

Send the bad person away from you

5 We have heard bad news about what is happening among you. Some of you are having sex in wrong ways. We have heard that one man is even having sex with his own father's wife! Even people who do not know God do not do things as bad as that! ² But, you are still proud of yourselves! Instead, you ought to be very sad and ashamed. You should have sent this man away from your group.

³ My body is not there with you, but my spirit is with you. It seems like I am present with you. So I have already decided about this man. This is how you should punish him for what he has done. ⁴ You have the authority of the Lord Jesus to do this. When you meet together as a group, my spirit will be with you. The power of our Lord Jesus will also be with you. ⁵ When you meet, put this man under Satan's authority. Satan will then destroy the man's body. Then God may save the man's spirit on the day when the Lord Jesus returns.

⁶ You should not be so proud of yourselves. Think about what yeast does in bread. A very small amount of yeast changes the whole loaf of bread. ⁷ The yeast in the flour is like one person who does wrong things. You must remove this old yeast from among you. Then you will be like a new loaf of bread. You are really like a loaf which has no yeast in it.^[a] You are pure, because Christ died as a sacrifice on our behalf. He is like the lamb that the Israelites killed for their Passover meal. ⁸ As a result, we can have our own Passover festival. We must remove everything that is bad from among us. That is like what the Israelites did when they removed all the old yeast from their homes. Instead we live in a way that is pure and honest. It is like we are eating bread which has no yeast in it.^[b]

⁹ I already wrote a letter to you. I told you that you must not be friends with people who have sex in wrong ways. ¹⁰ But I was not talking about people who do not know God. Those people have sex in wrong ways. They want many things to please themselves. They deceive people and they rob them. They worship idols. You could not keep away from all people like that, unless you left this world!

¹¹ Now I am telling you this: I was talking about people who say that they are believers. If they say that, but they have sex in a wrong way, do not be friends with them. It is the same if they want many things for themselves. They may worship idols. They may insult people. They may often get drunk. They may deceive people and rob them. If one of your own group does things like that, do not even agree to eat a meal with them. ^12-13 It is not right for me to decide about people who do not belong to the church group. God will judge those people. But you should decide what is right for the people who do belong to your group. Do what the Bible says:

Quarrels between Christians

6 Perhaps one of you has a quarrel with another Christian. Who should decide which of you is right? You should never ask people who do not know God to decide. No! Instead, you should go to God's people. They should decide. ² It is God's people who will judge all the people in the world one day. You surely know that. Since that is true, you should be able to decide about small quarrels between yourselves. ³ You know that we will judge the angels one day. So we must be able to decide about ordinary things here on earth.

⁴ If you want to decide an ordinary matter like that, what do you do? Sometimes you go to a judge who does not believe in God. You should never do that! The church does not respect people like that. ⁵ I say this so that you will feel ashamed. There is surely a wise person in your group who could decide quarrels between yourselves. ⁶ But instead, some believers among you accuse other believers in front of judges. And those judges are not believers!

⁷ When you accuse each other like that, it shows that you have already failed. It would be better to accept it when other people hurt you. Even if people rob you, it would be better to accept it. ⁸ Instead, you yourselves hurt other people, and you even rob them. And those other people are believers like you!

⁹ People who do wrong things like that will never belong to God's kingdom. You surely know that. Do not think that people like this will receive God's good things: People who have sex in wrong ways. People who worship idols. People who have sex with anyone that they are not married to. Men who have sex with other men. ¹⁰ People who rob other people. People who want many things for themselves. Drunks. People who insult other people. People who deceive other people to take things from them. None of these people will receive the good things of God's kingdom.

¹¹ At one time, some of you were people like that. But God has now made you clean and pure, so that you belong to him. You have become right with God. Our God has done this with the power of his Spirit because you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Use your bodies in a good way

¹² Some of you believers may say, ‘I am free to do anything that I want to do.’ That may be true, but not everything will help you. I could say, ‘I am free to do the things that I want to do.’ Yes, but I will not let anything rule over me.

¹³ Some of you may say, ‘God made food to feed our bodies. That is why people have stomachs. But one day God will destroy both stomachs and food.’ Yes, but the Lord gave our bodies to us. Our bodies belong to the Lord. So you should not use your bodies to have sex in a wrong way.^{[d] 14} God raised the Lord Jesus after he died. And God will use his power to make us alive again too.^[e]

¹⁵ You know that your bodies are parts of Christ's own body. So you must never take your body and make it join with a prostitute's body. That is like you have done it with part of Christ's body. Never let that happen! ¹⁶ Anyone who makes his own body join to a prostitute becomes one body with that prostitute. You should know that. It says in the Bible:

¹⁷ But everyone who is united to the Lord has the same spirit as him. ¹⁸ So never have sex in a wrong way! You may say, ‘If a person does a bad thing, it is not his body that does it.’ But if you have sex in a wrong way, you are doing a bad thing to your own body. ¹⁹ Remember this: Your body is the home of God's Holy Spirit. God gave his Holy Spirit to you and he lives in you. You do not belong to yourselves any longer. ²⁰ God bought you for himself. He paid the price for you. So use your body to show how great God is.^[g]

Questions about marriage

7 You wrote to ask me about certain things. You say, ‘It is a good thing when a man does not marry.’ ² That may be true, but then people may have sex in wrong ways. So every man should have his own wife and every woman should have her own husband. ³ Then they may have sex with each other in the right way. A husband should agree to have sex with his wife. And the wife should do the same thing for her husband. ⁴ The wife does not rule over her own body to decide when to have sex. She belongs to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not rule over his own body. He belongs to his wife.

⁵ Do not refuse to have sex with each other, unless both of you agree to stop for a short time. Then you can use more time to pray. But you should come together again soon, as husband and wife. If not, Satan may try to make you do something wrong. You may want too strongly to have sex with someone else. ⁶ I am saying these things to help you. I am not telling you what you must do. ⁷ It would be good if all of you could live in the way that I do. But each person has his own gift from God. God helps one person to live in a certain way. God helps another person with a different gift.

⁸ I will say this to those of you who have not married yet, and to those who are widows. It is better for you to remain alone. That is how I myself live. ⁹ But if you want to have sex too strongly, then you should marry. It is better to do that than to want to have sex all the time.

¹⁰ I will say this to people who have married. (This is not my rule. It is a rule that comes from the Lord himself.) A wife must not leave her husband. ¹¹ But if she does leave him, she must not marry another man. Or she should go back to live with her husband. In the same way, a husband must not send his wife away.

¹² To all you other people, I say this. (This is what I think. The Lord has not spoken about it.) A Christian man may have a wife who does not believe in Christ. If she agrees to continue living with him, then he should not send her away. ¹³ Also, a Christian woman may have a husband who does not believe in Christ. If he agrees to continue living with her, then she should not leave him. ¹⁴ God accepts a husband who does not believe in Christ because of his Christian wife. And God accepts a wife who does not believe in Christ because of her Christian husband. If that was not true, the children would not belong to God. But God does accept them, because to him they are now clean.

¹⁵ But the husband or wife who does not believe in Christ may want to leave. If they want to become separate, let them do that. If that happens, the Christian man or woman is now free. God wants you to live in peace. ¹⁶ If you are a Christian wife, you might save your husband. If you are a Christian husband, you might save your wife. But you can not be sure of what will happen.

¹⁷ But each of you should continue to live in the way that God has chosen for you. Remain as you were at the time when God called you to come to him. I teach that rule to people in all the churches. ¹⁸ Some of you are Jews, so people circumcised you. That happened before you believed in Christ. So do not try to change it. Some of you are not Jews. Nobody circumcised you. So continue like that. Do not ask anyone to circumcise you. ¹⁹ It is not important whether someone has circumcised you or not. The important thing is this: Obey what God says.

²⁰ Each of you should continue as you were when God called you to come to him. ²¹ You may have been a slave when God called you. That does not matter. But if you have the chance to become a free person, accept it. ²² The Lord may call a slave to come to him. Then, that slave has become free, because he belongs to the Lord. In the same way, when God calls a free person to belong to Christ, he becomes Christ's slave. ²³ God bought you for himself. He paid the price for you. So do not let anyone else make you their slave. ²⁴ My Christian friends, each of you should continue as you were when God first called you to come to him.^[h] Remember that you serve God.

²⁵ You asked me a question about people who have not yet married. The Lord has not told me any special rule about this. But I will tell you what I myself think about it. The Lord has been very kind to me. You know that you can believe what I say. ²⁶ This is what I think: There are many troubles in the world today. So it is better for everybody to continue as they are. ²⁷ If you have a wife, do not try to send her away. If you do not have a wife, do not try to marry. ²⁸ But if you do marry, that is not wrong. And if a young woman marries, that is not wrong. But people who marry will have many troubles during their life together. I want to save you from problems like that.

²⁹ My Christian friends, this is what I mean: The time that remains is very short. So men who have wives should live as if they had no wife. ³⁰ People who are sad should live as if they were not sad. People who are happy should live as if they had nothing to laugh about. People who buy things should live as if those things do not belong to them. ³¹ If you enjoy the things of this world, do not live as if those things are important. This world, as it is now, will soon finish.

³² I do not want you to worry about troubles. A man who has not married wants to serve the Lord. He wants to live in a way that makes the Lord happy. ³³ But a man who has married thinks a lot about this world's things. He wants to live in a way that makes his wife happy. ³⁴ As a result, he thinks in two opposite ways.

It is the same for a woman who has no husband, or a young girl who has not married. She wants to serve the Lord very well. She wants to be completely pure, both in her body and in her spirit. But a woman who has a husband has to think about this world's things. She wants to live in a way that makes her husband happy.

³⁵ I am saying this because I want to help you. I am not making rules that you have to obey. Instead, I want you to live in a right way. I do not want you to worry about troubles. Then you will be able to serve the Lord very well.

³⁶ Perhaps a man has agreed to marry a young woman. They may have decided to wait before they marry. But, as they grow older, the man may think differently. He may think that he needs to marry her. Then, he should do what he wants to do. It is good for them to marry. It is not wrong. ³⁷ But another man may not change his thoughts. He may be sure that he does not need to marry his young woman. If he decides not to marry her, he is doing the right thing. ³⁸ So the man who marries his young woman is doing a good thing. But the man who does not marry is doing a better thing.

³⁹ If a woman has married, she may not leave her husband while he still lives. But if he dies, then she is free to marry again. She may marry any man that she wants to. But he must be someone who belongs to the Lord. ⁴⁰ I do think that she would be happier if she remains without a husband. That is what I think, and God's Spirit also helps me with this.

About food that people offer to idols

8 You asked me a question about food that people have offered to idols. You say, ‘We all know about these things.’ We know that is true. But when you know about something, that can make you proud. Love is better. Love helps people to become strong. ² Some people may think that they know everything. People like that do not know as much as they ought to know. ³ But if somebody loves God, he is God's friend. God knows that person.

⁴ So think about food that people have offered to idols. You ask, ‘Should Christians eat that food?’ We know that no idol is really alive. We also know that there is only one God. ⁵ It is true that people call many things their gods. Those are things both in heaven and on earth. Those people have many gods and many lords. ⁶ But for us there is only one God, who is the Father. All things come from him. We live to serve him. For us, there is only one Lord, who is Jesus Christ. All things are there because of him. And we ourselves live because of him.

⁷ But not everyone understands properly about idols. Before they believed in Christ, some people worshipped idols for many years. So if they eat food that people have offered to an idol, they become afraid. They think that the food belongs to a real god. Their thoughts are weak. They think that they are doing something wrong. ⁸ But the food that we eat will not help us to please God. If we do not eat certain food, that will not make us worse. If we do eat that food, it will not make us better.

⁹ You are free to eat any kind of food. You understand that. But other Christians do not understand so well. So you must be careful. Do not cause them to do something that they think is wrong. ¹⁰ You may be eating food in a place where people worship idols. Then another Christian sees you there. You know that the idols are not real gods. But the other Christian may have weak thoughts about this. So, because he sees you, he may think that he can eat that food too. ¹¹ Because you understand properly, you are hurting someone who does not understand so well. In that way, the life of your Christian friend has become completely spoiled. Remember that Christ died to save that friend. ¹² If you do that kind of bad thing to hurt your Christian friends, you are hurting Christ himself. You are causing them to do something which they think is wrong. ¹³ I do not want to hurt any of my Christian friends. So, if the food that I eat causes them to do something wrong, I will never eat meat again.