¹ Can it be that, when one of you has a dispute with another, they dare to have their case tried before the heathen, instead of before Christ’s people?

² Do not you know that Christ’s people will try the world? And if the world is to be tried by you, are you unfit to try the most trivial cases?

³ Do not you know that we are to try angels — to say nothing of the affairs of this life?

⁴ Why, then, if you have cases relating to the affairs of this life, do you set to try them those who carry no weight with the church? To your shame I ask it.

⁵ Can it be that there is not one among you wise enough to decide between two of their fellow followers?

⁶ Must a follower sue a fellow follower? In front of unbelievers?

⁷ To begin with, it is undoubtedly a loss to you to have lawsuits with one another. Why not rather let yourselves be wronged? Why not rather let yourselves be cheated?

⁸ Instead of this, you wrong and cheat others yourselves — yes, even other followers!

⁹ Do not you know that wrong-doers will have no share in God’s kingdom? Do not be deceived. No one who is immoral, or an idolater, or an adulterer, or licentious, or a sexual pervert,

¹⁰ or a thief, or covetous, or a drunkard, or abusive, or grasping, will have any share in God’s kingdom.

¹¹ Such some of you used to be; but you washed yourselves clean. You became Christ’s people! You were pronounced righteous through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and through the Spirit of our God!

¹² Everything is allowable for me! Yes, but everything is not profitable. Everything is allowable for me! Yes, but for my part, I will not let myself be enslaved by anything.

¹³ Food exists for the stomach, and the stomach for food; but God will put an end to both the one and the other. The body, however, exists, not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body;

¹⁴ and, as God has raised the Lord, so he will raise up us also by the exercise of his power.

¹⁵ Do not you know that your bodies are Christ’s members? Am I, then, to take the members that belong to the Christ and make them the members of a prostitute? Heaven forbid!

¹⁶ Or do not you know that a man who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body (for ‘the two,’ it is said, ‘will become one’);

¹⁷ while a man who is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit?

¹⁸ Shun all immorality. Every other sin that people commit is something outside the body; but an immoral person sins against their own body.

¹⁹ Again, do not you know that your body is a shrine of the Holy Spirit that is within you – the Spirit which you have from God?

²⁰ Moreover, you are not your own masters; you were bought, and the price was paid. Therefore, honour God in your bodies.