1 Corinthians 9

₁I am free and I can do what I want. I am an apostle. I have seen Jesus, our Lord. You believe in the Lord because I have told you the Good_News. ₂Other people may think that I am not an apostle, but you believe in the Lord and that shows that I am an apostle.

₃I want to answer those people who say that I am not an apostle. To them I say: ₄We, the people working with me and I, have the right to ask the congregations to take care of us. ₅Each of us may take our wives, who are Christians too, with us and the congregation must take care of us. The other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas also take their wives with them. ₆Barnabas and I have the right to ask the congregations to take care of us. Then we do not have to do other work to take care of ourselves. ₇You know that a soldier does not pay for his own food and someone who plants a vineyard may eat some of the grapes, and someone who looks after sheep and goats may drink of their milk. ₈These are things that everyone knows and the laws of Moses say the same. ₉It is written in the laws of Moses:

Is God worried about oxen, or is He worried about us? ₁₀He is worried about us, this is sure. It is written:

This was written to help us. ₁₁When we told you the Good_News, we were sowing spiritual plants in your hearts. That is why we have the right to accept from you the food and clothes that we need. ₁₂You are helping other workers in the congregation, so Barnabas and I also have the right to ask you to care for us, even more than they do. We are suffering but we choose to care for ourselves because we don't want you to stop believing the Good_News of Christ. ₁₃You also know that the priests who work in the temple eat of the food that the people bring to the temple, and the priests who work at the altar eat of the meat that they sacrifice on the altar. ₁₄That is why Jesus said the people who preach the Good_News may eat from the offerings that people give. They must live from it. ₁₅But I have never asked the congregations to care for me. You must not think that I write about this so that you must now start to care for me. I do not want anyone to care for me. No, if someone has to care for me, it would be better for me to die because I am proud that I tell the Good_News and I do not ask you to pay me. ₁₆You must understand why I preach the Good_News. It is not so that I can be proud of doing it. No, I have to do it because God told me to. I can not decide to do anything else. It would be very bad for me if I did not preach.

₁₇If I preach the Good_News because I have asked to do it, then I could ask you to pay me for doing it. I preach the Good_News, but not because I have chosen to do it. I do it because the Lord has given me this important work. ₁₈Do you think that I do not get any reward? No, my reward is that I preach the Good_News and that you do not pay me for it. I may ask you to care for me, but I don't do it.

₁₉I am free to do what I want to do, but I have decided to become a slave to you all, so that more people can believe in Christ. ₂₀For the Jews I became a Jew, so that the Jews could believe in Christ. The Jews try to do everything in the laws of Moses and for them I became like someone who tries to do everything the laws say. In my heart I know that it is not important that we must do it all, but I do it so that the Jews can also believe in Christ. These Jews try to do everything that the laws of Moses say. ₂₁The Gentiles do not know the laws of Moses and for them I became like someone who does not know the laws of Moses. But I always live as God's laws say, as Christ explained it. I do it because I hope that the Gentiles who do not know the laws of Moses will believe in Christ. ₂₂Some believers do not have a strong faith and they think that all the laws of Moses are still important today. I also became like one of those believers. That is how I tried to help them to believe more strongly in Christ. I have tried to be like everyone so that maybe I will save some of them. ₂₃I do it all for the Good_News of Christ, so that I can also get what He has promised in his message.

₂₄You know that when people run in a race, there are many athletes who run, but only one who wins. You must run to win. ₂₅Everyone who runs in a race knows that there are many things he may not do. If he does something wrong, then he can not win. But if he wins, he gets a laurel-crown. The leaves of this crown do not stay beautiful for a long time. They become dry and they fall off. But we, who work for the Good_News of Christ, receive a crown that will be good forever. It will never become dry or stop being beautiful.

₂₆That is why I run like someone who wants to win. I am like a boxer who is hitting something very hard, not just hitting the air. ₂₇I practise very hard so that my body can do what I want it to do. If I don't do this, then it does not help that I preach to other people. Because then I would tell them what they must do, but when I tried to do it myself, I would not be able to do it.