Chapter 3

¹So, for my part, brothers, I could not treat you as spiritual persons; I had to treat you just as creatures of flesh and blood, as babies in Christian living. ²I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it.

Why, you are not ready for it now, ³for you are still worldly. For when there are still jealousy and quarrels among you, are you not worldly and living on a merely human level? ⁴For when one man says, “I am a follower of Paul,” and another, “I am a follower of Apollos,” are you not simply human? ⁵What is Apollos? Or what is Paul? Just servants through whom you came to have faith, as the Lord gave each of us opportunity. ⁶I did the planting, Apollos the watering, but it was God who made the plants grow. ⁷So neither the planter nor the waterer counts for anything, but only God who makes the plants grow. ⁸The planter and the waterer are all one, though each of us will be paid for his own work. ⁹For we are fellow-laborers for God, and you are God’s farm, God’s building.

¹⁰Like an expert builder, I laid a foundation, as God commissioned me to do, and now someone else is building upon it. But let everyone be careful how he does so. ¹¹For no one can lay any other foundation than the one that is laid, that is, Jesus Christ himself. ¹²And whether one uses gold or silver or costly stone in building on the foundation, or wood or hay or straw, ¹³the quality of everyone’s work will appear, for the Day will show it. For the Day will break in fire, and the fire will test the quality of everyone’s work. ¹⁴If what a man has built on the foundation stands the test, he will have his pay. ¹⁵If a man’s work is burned up, he must stand the loss, though he himself will be saved, but as one who has passed through the fire.

¹⁶Do you know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit makes its home in you? ¹⁷If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is sacred, and that is what you are.

¹⁸Let no one of you deceive himself. If any one of you imagines that he is wiser than the rest of you, in what this world calls wisdom, he had better become a fool, so as to become really wise. ¹⁹For this world’s wisdom is foolishness to God. For the Scripture says, “He who catches the wise with their own cunning,” ²⁰and “The Lord knows that the deliberations of the wise are fruitless.” ²¹So no one should boast about men. For it all belongs to you— ²²Paul, Apollos, Cephas, the world, life, death, the present, the future—all of it belongs to you. ²³But you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.