| 1 | Am I not free? am I not an apostle? have I not seen Jesus our Lord? are not *ye* my work in [the] Lord? |
| 2 | If I am not an apostle to others, yet at any rate I am to you: for the seal of mine apostleship are *ye* in [the] Lord. |
| 3 | My defence to those who examine me is this: |
| 4 | Have we not a right to eat and to drink? |
| 5 | have we not a right to take round a sister [as] wife, as also the other apostles, and the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas? |
| 6 | Or *I* alone and Barnabas, have we not a right not to work? |
| 7 | Who ever carries on war at his own charges? who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? or who herds a flock and does not eat of the milk of the flock? |
| 8 | Do I speak these things as a man, or does not the law also say these things? |
| 9 | For in the law of Moses it is written, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that is treading out corn. Is God occupied about the oxen, |
| 10 | or does he say [it] altogether for our sakes? For for our sakes it has been written, that the plougher should plough in hope, and he that treads out corn, in hope of partaking of [it]. |
| 11 | If we have sown to you spiritual things, [is it a] great [thing] if *we* shall reap your carnal things? |
| 12 | If others partake of this right over you, should not rather *we*? But we have not used this right, but we bear all things, that we may put no hindrance in the way of the glad tidings of the Christ. |
| 13 | Do ye not know that they who labour [at] sacred things eat of the [offerings offered in the] temple; they that attend at the altar partake with the altar? |
| 14 | So also the Lord has ordained to those that announce the glad tidings to live of the glad tidings. |
| 15 | But *I* have used none of these things. Now I have not written these things that it should be thus in my case; for [it were] good for me rather to die than that any one should make vain my boast. |
| 16 | For if I announce the glad tidings, I have nothing to boast of; for a necessity is laid upon me; for it is woe to me if I should not announce the glad tidings. |
| 17 | For if I do this voluntarily, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with an administration. |
| 18 | What is the reward then that I have? That in announcing the glad tidings I make the glad tidings costless [to others], so as not to have made use, as belonging to me, of my right in [announcing] the glad tidings. |
| 19 | For being free from all, I have made myself bondman to all, that I might gain the most [possible]. |
| 20 | And I became to the Jews as a Jew, in order that I might gain the Jews: to those under law, as under law, not being myself under law, in order that I might gain those under law: |
| 21 | to those without law, as without law, (not as without law to God, but as legitimately subject to Christ,) in order that I might gain [those] without law. |
| 22 | I became to the weak, [as] weak, in order that I might gain the weak. To all I have become all things, in order that at all events I might save some. |
| 23 | And I do all things for the sake of the glad tidings, that I may be fellow-partaker with them. |
| 24 | Know ye not that they who run in [the] race-course run all, but one receives the prize? Thus run in order that ye may obtain. |
| 25 | But every one that contends [for a prize] is temperate in all things: *they* then indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown, but *we* an incorruptible. |
| 26 | *I* therefore thus run, as not uncertainly; so I combat, as not beating the air. |
| 27 | But I buffet my body, and lead it captive, lest [after] having preached to others I should be myself rejected. |
