¹ Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? 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, yet certainly I am to you; for the seal of my apostleship are you in the Lord.

³ My answer to those who examine me is this:

⁴ Have we not the right to eat and drink?

⁵ Have we not the right to lead about a sister wife, as the other apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?

⁶ Or, have I only, and Barnabas, no right to leave off working?

⁷ What man ever serves as a soldier, at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard, and eats not of its fruit? Or who tends a flock, and eats not of the milk of the flock?

⁸ Do I speak these things as a man? Or does not the law, also, say the same?

⁹ For it is written in the law of Moses: You shall not muzzle the ox that treads out the grain? Has God a care for oxen?

¹⁰ or does he say it wholly for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, it was written: that he that plows should plow in hope, and that he that thrashes should thrash in hope of partaking.

¹¹ If we have sown, for your benefit, things that are spiritual, is it a great thing that we reap your carnal things?

¹² If others partake of this right over you, should not we rather? But we have not used this right: but we endure all things, lest we should hinder the gospel of the Christ.

¹³ Do you not know that those who are engaged about sacred rites have their living from the temple? and that those who attend upon the altar are partakers with the altar?

¹⁴ So, also, the Lord has ordained that those who preach the gospel should live by the gospel.

¹⁵ But I have availed myself of none of these things; nor do I write these things that it should be so done to me. For it would be better for me to die, than that any one should make my boasting vain.

¹⁶ For though I preach the gospel, I have no cause for boasting; for a necessity is laid upon me; yes, alas for me, if I preach not the gospel.

¹⁷ For if I do this willingly, I have a reward; but if unwillingly, an apostolic stewardship has been intrusted to me.

¹⁸ What, then, is my reward? That, while I preach, I may make the gospel of Christ to be without charge, in order that I may not abuse my authority in the gospel.

¹⁹ For, though I am free from all men, yet have I made myself a servant to all, that I may gain the more.

²⁰ And to the Jews, I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews: to those who are under law, as under law, (not being myself under law,) that I might gain those who are under law;

²¹ to those who are without law, as without law, (not being myself without law to God, but under law to Christ,) that I might gain those who are without law:

²² to the weak I became like one who was weak, that I might gain the weak: I have become all things to all men, that I may, by all means, save some.

²³ And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may share its benefits with you.

²⁴ Know you not that all the runners in the race-course run the race, but that one receives the prize? So run, that you may obtain the prize.

²⁵ Every combatant in the public games is temperate in all things: they, indeed, that they may obtain a corruptible, but we, that we may obtain an incorruptible crown.

²⁶ I, therefore, so run, not as with uncertainty; I so aim my blows, not as one that beats the air;

²⁷ but I put my body under severe discipline, and bring it into subjection, lest, after I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected.