OEBcth - I Corinthians - 3

3:1  But 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.

3:2  I 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.

3:3  While there exist among you jealousy and party feeling, is it not true that you are worldly, and are acting merely as other people do?

3:4  When one says ‘I follow Paul,’ and another ‘I follow Apollos,’ are not you like other people?

3:5  What, 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.

3:6  I planted, and Apollos watered, but it was God who caused the growth.

3:7  Therefore neither the one who plants, nor the one who waters, counts for anything, but only God who causes the growth.

3:8  In this the person who plants and the person who waters are one; yet each will receive their own reward in proportion to their own labour.

3:9  For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s harvest field, God’s building.

3:10  In fulfilment of the charge which God had entrusted to me, I laid the foundation like a skilful master; but someone else is now building on it. Let everyone take care how they build;

3:11  for no one can lay any other foundation than the one already laid — Jesus Christ.

3:12  Whatever is used by those who build on this foundation, whether gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw,

3:13  the 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.

3:14  If anyone’s work, which they have built on that foundation, still remains, they will gain a reward.

3:15  If anyone’s work is burnt up, they will suffer loss; though they themselves will escape, but only as one who has passed through fire.

3:16  Do not you know that you are God’s Temple, and that God’s Spirit has his home in you?

3:17  If any one destroys the Temple of God, God will destroy them; for the Temple of God is sacred, and so also are you.

3:18  Let no one deceive himself. If any one among you imagines that, as regards this world, they are wise, let them become a ‘fool,’ that they may become wise.

3:19  For in God’s sight this world’s wisdom is folly. Scripture tells of — ‘One who catches the wise in their own craftiness,’

3:20  And it says again — ‘The Lord sees how fruitless are the deliberations of the wise.’

3:21  Therefore let no one boast about people; for all things are yours —

3:22  Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or the present, or the future — all things are yours!

3:23  But you are Christ’s and Christ is God’s.