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“Foods for the belly, and the belly for foods,” but God will bring to nothing both it and them. But the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.

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Now God raised up the Lord, and will also raise us up by his power.

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Don’t you know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be!

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Or don’t you know that he who is joined to a prostitute is one body? For, “The two,” says he, “will become one flesh.”

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But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.

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Flee sexual immorality! “Every sin that a man does is outside the body,” but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.

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Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have from God? You are not your own,

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for you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.

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Now concerning the things about which you wrote to me: it is good for a man not to touch a woman.

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But, because of sexual immoralities, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.

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Let the husband render to his wife the affection owed her, and likewise also the wife to her husband.

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The wife doesn’t have authority over her own body, but the husband. Likewise also the husband doesn’t have authority over his own body, but the wife.

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Don’t deprive one another, unless it is by consent for a season, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer, and may be together again, that Satan doesn’t tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

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But this I say by way of concession, not of commandment.

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Yet I wish that all men were like me. However each man has his own gift from God, one of this kind, and another of that kind.

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But I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they remain even as I am.

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But if they don’t have self-control, let them marry. For it’s better to marry than to burn.

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But to the married I command–not I, but the Lord–that the wife not leave her husband

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(but if she departs, let her remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband not leave his wife.

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But to the rest I–not the Lord–say, if any brother has an unbelieving wife, and she is content to live with him, let him not leave her.

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The woman who has an unbelieving husband, and he is content to live with her, let her not leave her husband.

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For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy.

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Yet if the unbeliever departs, let there be separation. The brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us in peace.

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For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

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Only, as the Lord has distributed to each man, as God has called each, so let him walk. So I command in all the assemblies.

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Was anyone called having been circumcised? Let him not become uncircumcised. Has anyone been called in uncircumcision? Let him not be circumcised.

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Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God.

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Let each man stay in that calling in which he was called.

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Were you called being a bondservant? Don’t let that bother you, but if you get an opportunity to become free, use it.

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For he who was called in the Lord being a bondservant is the Lord’s free man. Likewise he who was called being free is Christ’s bondservant.

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You were bought with a price. Don’t become bondservants of men.

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Brothers, let each man, in whatever condition he was called, stay in that condition with God.

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Now concerning virgins, I have no commandment from the Lord, but I give my judgment as one who has obtained mercy from the Lord to be trustworthy.

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I think that it is good therefore, because of the distress that is on us, that it is good for a man to be as he is.

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Are you bound to a wife? Don’t seek to be freed. Are you free from a wife? Don’t seek a wife.

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But if you marry, you have not sinned. If a virgin marries, she has not sinned. Yet such will have oppression in the flesh, and I want to spare you.

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But I say this, brothers: the time is short, that from now on, both those who have wives may be as though they had none;

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and those who weep, as though they didn’t weep; and those who rejoice, as though they didn’t rejoice; and those who buy, as though they didn’t possess;

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and those who use the world, as not using it to the fullest. For the mode of this world passes away.

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But I desire to have you to be free from cares. He who is unmarried is concerned for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord;

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but he who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife.

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There is also a difference between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman cares about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But she who is married cares about the things of the world–how she may please her husband.

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This I say for your own profit; not that I may ensnare you, but for that which is appropriate, and that you may attend to the Lord without distraction.

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But if any man thinks that he is behaving inappropriately toward his virgin, if she is past the flower of her age, and if need so requires, let him do what he desires. He doesn’t sin. Let them marry.

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But he who stands steadfast in his heart, having no necessity, but has power over his own heart, to keep his own virgin, does well.

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So then both he who gives his own virgin in marriage does well, and he who doesn’t give her in marriage does better.

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A wife is bound by law for as long as her husband lives; but if the husband is dead, she is free to be married to whoever she desires, only in the Lord.

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But she is happier if she stays as she is, in my judgment, and I think that I also have God’s Spirit.

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Now concerning things sacrificed to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

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But if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he doesn’t yet know as he ought to know.

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But if anyone loves God, the same is known by him.

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Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that no idol is anything in the world, and that there is no other God but one.

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For though there are things that are called “gods,” whether in the heavens or on earth; as there are many “gods” and many “lords;”

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yet to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we live through him.

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However, that knowledge isn’t in all men. But some, with consciousness of the idol until now, eat as of a thing sacrificed to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled.

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But food will not commend us to God. For neither, if we don’t eat, are we the worse; nor, if we eat, are we the better.

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But be careful that by no means does this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to the weak.

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For if a man sees you who have knowledge sitting in an idol’s temple, won’t his conscience, if he is weak, be emboldened to eat things sacrificed to idols?

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And through your knowledge, he who is weak perishes, the brother for whose sake Christ died.

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Thus, sinning against the brothers, and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ.

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Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will eat no meat forevermore, that I don’t cause my brother to stumble.

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Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Haven’t I seen Jesus Christ, our Lord? Aren’t you my work in the Lord?

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If to others I am not an apostle, yet at least I am to you; for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

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My defense to those who examine me is this.

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Have we no right to eat and to drink?

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Have we no right to take along a wife who is a believer, even as the rest of the apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?

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Or have only Barnabas and I no right to not work?

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What soldier ever serves at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard, and doesn’t eat of its fruit? Or who feeds a flock, and doesn’t drink from the flock’s milk?

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Do I speak these things according to the ways of men? Or doesn’t the law also say the same thing?

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For it is written in the law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.” Is it for the oxen that God cares,

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or does he say it assuredly for our sake? Yes, it was written for our sake, because he who plows ought to plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope should partake of his hope.

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If we sowed to you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we reap your fleshly things?

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If others partake of this right over you, don’t we yet more? Nevertheless we did not use this right, but we bear all things, that we may cause no hindrance to the Good News of Christ.

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Don’t you know that those who serve around sacred things eat from the things of the temple, and those who wait on the altar have their portion with the altar?

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Even so the Lord ordained that those who proclaim the Good News should live from the Good News.

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But I have used none of these things, and I don’t write these things that it may be done so in my case; for I would rather die, than that anyone should make my boasting void.

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For if I preach the Good News, I have nothing to boast about; for necessity is laid on me; but woe is to me, if I don’t preach the Good News.

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For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward. But if not of my own will, I have a stewardship entrusted to me.

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What then is my reward? That, when I preach the Good News, I may present the Good News of Christ without charge, so as not to abuse my authority in the Good News.

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For though I was free from all, I brought myself under bondage to all, that I might gain the more.

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To the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain those who are under the law;

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to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law.

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To the weak I became as weak, that I might gain the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some.

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Now I do this for the sake of the Good News, that I may be a joint partaker of it.

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Don’t you know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run like that, that you may win.

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Every man who strives in the games exercises self-control in all things. Now they do it to receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.

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I therefore run like that, as not uncertainly. I fight like that, as not beating the air,

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but I beat my body and bring it into submission, lest by any means, after I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected.

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Now I would not have you ignorant, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;

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and were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea;

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and all ate the same spiritual food;

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and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of a spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.

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However with most of them, God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

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Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.

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Neither be idolaters, as some of them were. As it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.”

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Neither let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them committed, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell.

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Neither let us test the Lord, as some of them tested, and perished by the serpents.

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Neither grumble, as some of them also grumbled, and perished by the destroyer.

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Now all these things happened to them by way of example, and they were written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the ages have come.

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Therefore let him who thinks he stands be careful that he doesn’t fall.