1Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord?
2If to others I am not an apostle, yet indeed I am to you; for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.
3This is my defense to those who examine me.
4Do we not have the right to eat and to drink?
5Do we not have the right to take along a sister as wife, as also the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?
6Or is it only I and Barnabas who have no right to refrain from working?
7Who ever serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its fruit? Or who shepherds a flock and does not eat from the milk of the flock?
8Am I saying these things merely on human authority, or does not the Law also say these things?
9For in the Law of Moses it is written: “You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.” Is it about oxen that God is concerned?
10Or does he speak entirely for our sake? For it was written for our sake, because the one who plows ought to plow in hope, and the one who threshes to do so in hope of sharing in the crop.
11If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it a great thing if we reap material things from you?
12If others share in this right over you, do not we all the more? But we did not make use of this right; rather, we endure all things so that we may not put any obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.
13Do you not know that those who work at the sacred things eat from the temple, and those who attend the altar share with the altar?
14In the same way the Lord also directed that those who proclaim the gospel should live from the gospel.
15But I have made use of none of these things. And I have not written these things so that it might be done so for me; for it would be better for me to die than—no one will empty my boast.
16For if I preach the gospel, that is no ground for boasting for me, for necessity is laid upon me; for woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!
17For if I do this willingly, I have a reward; but if unwillingly, I have been entrusted with a stewardship.
18What then is my reward? That in preaching the gospel I may present the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel.
19For though I am free from all, I have enslaved myself to all, so that I might gain the more.
20And I became to the Jews as a Jew, so that I might gain Jews; to those under law as under law—though I myself am not under law—so that I might gain those under law;
21to those without law as without law—not being without the law of God but within the law of Christ—so that I might gain those without law;
22I became weak to the weak, so that I might gain the weak; to all people I have become all things, so that by all means I might save some.
23And I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a fellow-sharer in it.
24Do you not know that those who run in a stadium all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it.
25And everyone who competes exercises self-control in all things. They do so to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one.
26So then I run in this way, not aimlessly; I box in this way, not as one beating the air.
27But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest somehow, having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.
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