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 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.
3 My defense to those who examine me is this:
4 Do we not have the right to eat and to drink?
5 Do we not have the right to take along a sister as a wife, as also the other apostles do, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?
6 Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working?
7 Who ever serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Or who tends a flock and does not drink of the milk of the flock?
8 Do I say these things as a mere man? Or does not the law say the same also?
9 For in the law of Moses it is written, "You shall not muzzle a threshing ox." Is it for the oxen that God is concerned?
10 Or does he say it entirely for our sake? For our sake it was written, that he who plows should plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope should be partaker of his hope.
11 If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it a great thing if we reap your fleshly things?
12 If others share in this right over you, do not we even more? Yet we have not used this right, but we endure all things, lest we should hinder the gospel of Christ.
13 Do you not know that those who minister at the holy things eat of the things of the temple, and those who serve at the altar share with the altar?
14 Even so the Lord ordained that those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel.
15 But I have used none of these things; nor have I written these things that it should be done so to me; for it would be better for me to die than that anyone should make my boasting void.
16 For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of; for necessity is laid upon me; yes, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel.
17 For if I do this willingly, I have a reward; but if against my will, I have been entrusted with a stewardship.
18 What, then, is my reward? That when I preach the gospel I may make the gospel of Christ free of charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel.
19 For though I am free from all men, I made myself a servant to all, that I might gain the more.
20 And to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain those who are under the law;
21 to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might gain those who are without law.
22 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.
23 And this I do for the gospel's sake, that I may become a fellow partaker of it.
24 Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? So run, that you may obtain it.
25 And everyone who competes exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable.
26 Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty; thus I fight: not as one who beats the air;
27 but I buffet my body and bring it into bondage, lest by any means, after preaching to others, I myself should be disqualified.