1 Corinthians 9

¹Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord?

²If to others I am not an apostle, yet at least I am to you; for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

³My defense to those who are examining me is this:

⁴Do we not have the right to eat and to drink?

⁵Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?

⁶Or is it only Barnabas and I who do not have the right to refrain from working?

⁷Who serves as a soldier at his own expense at any time? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat from its fruit? Or who shepherds a flock and does not eat from the milk of the flock?

⁸Am I saying these things on merely human authority? Does the Law not also say these things?

⁹For in the law of Moses it is written, 'You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.' Is it for oxen that God is concerned?

¹⁰Or does he not speak entirely for our sake? Yes, for our sake it was written that the one who plows ought to plow in hope, and the one who threshes ought to thresh in hope of partaking.

¹¹If we sowed 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 we not even more? Nevertheless, we did not use this right, but we endure all things so that we may put no hindrance to the gospel of Christ.

¹³Do you not know that those who are engaged in sacred things eat from the temple, and those who attend at the altar share with the altar?

¹⁴So also the Lord directed that those who proclaim the gospel should live from the gospel.

¹⁵But I have not made use of any of these things. And I have not written these things so that it may happen in this way in my case; for it is better for me to die than — no one will deprive me of my boasting!

¹⁶For if I proclaim the gospel, I have nothing to boast about, for necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not proclaim 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 proclaiming the gospel I may offer 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 to the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews; to those under the Law, as under the Law — not being myself under the Law — in order to win those under the Law;

²¹to those outside the law as one outside the law — not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ — so that I might gain those outside the law.

²²To the weak I became as weak, in order to win the weak. To all I have become all things, so that by all means I might save some.

²³And all things I do on account of the gospel, that I may become a fellow partaker of it.

²⁴Do you not know that those who run in a race course all run, but one receives the prize? Run in this way, so that you may obtain it.

²⁵And everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one.

²⁶I therefore run in this way, as not running aimlessly; I box in this way, as not beating the air;

²⁷But I pommel my body and bring it into subjection, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.