Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

For Example, I Have The Right To Be Paid As God’s Workman

9 Am^[a] I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? ² If to others I am not an apostle, yet indeed I am to you. For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord— ³ this^[b] is my defense to the ones examining me! ⁴ We do not fail to have the right to eat^[c] and drink, do we? ⁵ We do not fail to have the right to take along^[d] a sister who is a wife, do we?— as also the other apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas. ⁶ Or I alone and Barnabas— do not we have the right not to be working^[e]?

Workers Always Partake of The Fruit of Their Labors

⁷ Who ever serves-as-a-soldier with his own rations? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat the fruit of it? Or who shepherds a flock and does not eat of the milk of the flock?

Does Not The Law Say This Very Thing?

⁸ I am not speaking these things according to [mere] human thinking^[f], am I ? Or does not the Law also say these things? ⁹ For in the Law of Moses it has been written [in Deut 25:4], “You shall not muzzle a threshing ox”. God is not concerned about the oxen^[g], is He? ¹⁰ Or is He surely speaking for our sake? Indeed it was written for our sake— because^[h] the one plowing ought to plow on the basis of hope, and the one threshing to thresh on the basis of hope that he might partake.

I Do Have This Right Over You

¹¹ If we sowed spiritual things to you, is it a great thing if we shall reap fleshly^[i] things from you? ¹² If others partake of this right over you, should we not more?

But I Chose Not To Make Use Of This Right So As Not To Hinder The Gospel

Nevertheless, we did not make-use-of ^[j] this right. But we are bearing^[k] all things, in order that we might not give any hindrance to the good-news of Christ.

The Lord Even Commanded That Gospel Workers Live By Their Work

¹³ Do you not know that the ones working the temple-duties eat the things from the temple, that the ones serving at the altar divide-a-share with the altar? ¹⁴ So also the Lord directed^[l] the ones proclaiming the good-news to be living from the good-news.

But My Boast Is That I Do Not Make Use of This Right

¹⁵ But I have not made-use-of any of these things. And I did not write these things in order that it might become so in my case, for it would be better for me to die rather than— no one shall empty my boast^[m]! ¹⁶ For if I am announcing-the-good-news, it is not^[n] a boast for me, for a necessity^[o] is lying-upon^[p] me; for woe is to me if I do not announce-the-good-news.