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

² If I am not an apostle to others, but yet I am to you°, for$ you° are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

³ My defense to the ones examining me is this:

⁴ have we no authority to eat and to drink?

⁵ Have we no authority to lead around a wife (a sister in the Lord), even as the rest of the apostles and the brethren of the Lord and Cephas?

⁶ Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no authority not to work?

⁷ Who would ever make war while supplying his own rations? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat from its fruit? Or who shepherds a flock and does not eat from the milk {i.e., drink the milk} of the flock?

⁸ I am not speaking these things according-to man. Or is the law not also saying these things?

⁹ For$ it has been written in the Law of Moses, ‘You will not muzzle a threshing bull.’ {Deu 25:4} God does not care only for the bulls, does he?

¹⁰ Or does he certainly say it because of us? For$ it was written because of us, that the one plowing ought to plow in hope, and the one threshing ought to thresh in the hope to partake of his hope.

¹¹ If we sowed spiritual things to you°, is it a great thing if we will be reaping your° fleshly things?

¹² If others are partaking of this authority over you°, do we not more? But we did not use this authority, but we are forbearing all things, in-order-that we should not give any hindrance to the good-news of the Christ.

¹³ Do you° not know that the ones working at the sacred things, eat the things from the temple, and the ones waiting-upon the altar have their part together-with the altar?

¹⁴ So, the Lord also commanded that the ones proclaiming the good-news, to live out-of the good-news.

¹⁵ But I used nothing of these things, and I did not write these things in-order-that it may become so with$ me, for$ it would be good for me rather to die, than in-order-that anyone should make my boasting void.

¹⁶ For$ if I proclaim the good-news, it is not boasting to me, for$ necessity is laying upon me; but woe is to me, if I, myself, do not proclaim the good-news.

¹⁷ For$ if I am doing$ this voluntarily, I have a reward, but if I do so involuntarily, I have been entrusted with a stewardship.

¹⁸ Therefore, what is the reward to me? In-order-that, in proclaiming the good-news of the Christ without cost, I might place the good-news before you°, and $that$ I should not make full use of my authority in the good-news.

¹⁹ For$ although being free from all, I enslaved myself to all in-order-that I might gain all the more.

²⁰ And I became like a Jew to the Jews in-order-that I might gain Jews. I became like those under the law to the ones who are under the law in-order-that I might gain the ones under the law.

²¹ I became like the lawless to the ones who are lawless (not being lawless to God, but lawful to Christ) in-order-that I might gain the lawless.

²² I became to the weak ones like the weak in-order-that I might gain the weak. I have become all things to all people in-order-that I may certainly save some.

²³ But I am doing$ this because of the good-news, in-order-that I might become a fellow partner of it.

²⁴ Do you° not know that the ones who run in the stadium, all indeed run, but only one receives the prize? So run° in-order-that you° may grab it.

²⁵ But everyone who struggles in the race exercises self-control in all things. Therefore indeed, those men do it in-order-that they may receive a corruptible crown, but we receive an incorruptible crown.

²⁶ Now-then, I run so, as not with uncertainty. I am combating so, as not just smacking the air,

²⁷ but I am buffeting my body and enslaving it, lest after I preached to others, I myself might become unapproved.