¹ But I, Brothers, could not speak to you as men with spiritual insight, but only as worldly-minded — mere infants in the Faith of Christ.

² I fed you with milk, not with solid food, for you were not then able to take it. No, and even now you are not able; you are still worldly.

³ While there exist among you jealousy and party feeling, is it not true that you are worldly, and are acting merely as other men do?

⁴ When one says ‘I follow Paul,’ and another ‘I follow Apollos,’ are not you like other men?

⁵ What, I ask, is Apollos? or what is Paul? Servants through whom you were led to accept the Faith; and that only as the Lord helped each of you.

⁶ I planted, and Apollos watered, but it was God who caused the growth.

⁷ Therefore neither the man who plants, nor the man who waters, is of any account, but only God who causes the growth.

⁸ In this the man who plants and the man who waters are one; yet each will receive his own reward in proportion to his own labour.

⁹ For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s harvest field, God’s building.

¹⁰ In fulfilment of the charge which God had entrusted to me, I laid the foundation like a skilful master-builder; but another man is now building upon it. Let every one take care how he builds;

¹¹ for no man can lay any other foundation than the one already laid — Jesus Christ.

¹² Whatever is used by those who build upon this foundation, whether gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw,

¹³ the quality of each man’s work will become known, for the Day will make it plain; because that Day is to be ushered in with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of every man’s work.

¹⁴ If any man’s work, which he has built upon that foundation, still remains, he will gain a reward.

¹⁵ If any man’s work is burnt up, he will suffer loss; though he himself will escape, but only as one who has passed through fire.

¹⁶ Do not you know that you are God’s Temple, and that God’s Spirit has his home in you?

¹⁷ If any one destroys the Temple of God, God will destroy him; for the Temple of God is sacred, and so also are you.

¹⁸ Let no one deceive himself. If any one among you imagines that, as regards this world, he is a wise man, let him become a ‘fool,’ that he may become wise.

¹⁹ For in God’s sight this world’s wisdom is folly. Scripture tells of — ‘One who catches the wise in their own craftiness,’

²⁰ And it says again — ‘The Lord sees how fruitless are the deliberations of the wise.’

²¹ Therefore let no one boast about men; for all things are yours —

²² Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Kephas, or the world, or life, or death, or the present, or the future — all things are yours!

²³ But you are Christ’s and Christ is God’s.