1But I, my friends, could not speak to you as people with spiritual insight, but only as worldly-minded – mere infants in the faith of Christ.
2I 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.
3While there exist among you jealousy and party feeling, is it not true that you are worldly, and are acting merely as other people do?
4When one says ‘I follow Paul,’ and another ‘I follow Apollos,’ aren’t you like other people?
5What, 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.
6I planted, and Apollos watered, but it was God who caused the growth.
7Therefore neither the one who plants, nor the one who waters, counts for anything, but only God who causes the growth.
8In this the person who plants and the person who waters are one; yet each will receive their own reward in proportion to their own labor.
9For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s harvest field, God’s building.
10In fulfillment of the charge which God had entrusted to me, I laid the foundation like a skillful master; but someone else is now building on it. Let everyone take care how they build;
11for no one can lay any other foundation than the one already laid – Jesus Christ.
12Whatever is used by those who build on this foundation, whether gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw,
13the 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.
14If anyone’s work, which they have built on that foundation, still remains, they will gain a reward.
15If anyone’s work is burnt up, they will suffer loss; though they themselves will escape, but only as one who has passed through fire.
16Don’t you know that you are God’s Temple, and that God’s Spirit has his home in you?
17If any one destroys the Temple of God, God will destroy them; for the Temple of God is sacred, and so also are you.
18Let no one deceive himself. If any one among you imagines that, as regards this world, they are wise, they should become a ‘fool,’ that they may become wise.
19For in God’s sight this world’s wisdom is folly. Scripture tells of – ‘One who catches the wise in their own craftiness,’
20And it says again – ‘The Lord sees how fruitless are the deliberations of the wise.’
21Therefore let no one boast about people; for all things are yours –
22whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or the present, or the future – all things are yours!
23But you are Christ’s and Christ is God’s.