Twenty - I Corinthians - 6

6:1  Can it be that, when one of you has a dispute with another, he dares to have his case tried before the heathen, instead of before Christ's People?

6:2  Do not you know that Christ's People will try the world? And if the world is to be tried by you, are you unfit to try the most trivial cases?

6:3  Do not you know that we are to try angels--to say nothing of the affairs of this life?

6:4  Why, then, if you have cases relating to the affairs of this life, do you set to try them men who carry no weight with the Church? To your shame I ask it.

6:5  Can it be that there is not one man among you wise enough to decide between two of his Brothers?

6:6  Must Brother go to law with Brother, and that, too, before unbelievers?

6:7  To begin with, it is undoubtedly a loss to you to have lawsuits with one another. Why not rather let yourselves be wronged? Why not rather let yourselves be cheated?

6:8  Instead of this, you wrong and cheat others yourselves--yes, even your Brothers!

6:9  Do not you know that wrong-doers will have no share in God's Kingdom? Do not be deceived. No one who is immoral, or an idolater, or an adulterer, or licentious, or a sodomite,

6:10  Or a thief, or covetous, or a drunkard, or abusive, or grasping, will have any share in God's Kingdom.

6:11  Such some of you used to be; but you washed yourselves clean. You became Christ's People! you were pronounced righteous through the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and through the Spirit of our God!

6:12  Everything is allowable for me! Yes, but everything is not profitable. Everything is allowable for me! Yes, but for my part, I will not let myself be enslaved by anything.

6:13  Food exists for the stomach, and the stomach for food; but God will put an end to both the one and the other. The body, however, exists, not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body;

6:14  And, as God has raised the Lord, so he will raise up us also by the exercise of his power.

6:15  Do not you know that your bodies are Christ's members? Am I, then, to take the members that belong to the Christ and make them the members of a prostitute? Heaven forbid!

6:16  Or do not you know that a man who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body (for 'the two,' it is said, 'will become one');

6:17  While a man who is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit?

6:18  Shun all immorality. Every other sin that men commit is something outside the body; but an immoral man sins against his own body.

6:19  Again, do not you know that your body is a shrine of the Holy Spirit that is within you--the Spirit which you have from God?

6:20  Moreover, you are not your own masters; you were bought, and the price was paid. Therefore, honor God in your bodies.