¹So a man should regard us as servants of the Anointed One and stewards of the mysteries of God.

²Moreover, in this case it is required in the stewards that one be found faithful.

³But for me it is the smallest matter that I may be examined by you or by a human court; in fact, neither do I examine myself.

⁴For I am conscious of nothing against myself; yet by this I have not been justified; but the One judging me is the Lord.

⁵So then judge nothing before the appointed-time, until the Lord comes, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the motives of the hearts; and then the praise will come to each from God.

⁶Now these things, brothers, I have applied to myself and Apollos on your account, so that in us you may learn not to think beyond what things has been written, that not one of you be puffed up for the one over the other.

⁷For who makes you different? And what have you which you did not receive? And if even you did receive it, why do you boast as not having received it?

⁸Already you are satiated, already you have been enriched, apart from us you reigned; and I wish that you really did reign, so that we ourselves also may reign with you.

⁹For I think that God has exhibited us the sent ones last, as appointed to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, both to messengers and to men.

¹⁰But we ourselves are fools on account of the Anointed One, you yourselves wise in the Anointed One; we ourselves weak, you yourselves strong; you yourselves honored, we ourselves without honor.

¹¹As far as the present hour, we both hunger and thirst and are poorly clad and are buffeted and wander homeless,

¹²and we toil, working with our own hands; being reviled we bless, being persecuted we endure,

¹³being defamed we entreat. As the scum of the earth we have become, the refuse of all, until now.

¹⁴Not to shame you do I write these things, but admonishing you as my beloved children.

¹⁵For if you shall have ten thousand guardians in the Anointed One, yet not many fathers; for in the Anointed One Jesus, through the good news, I myself begot you.

¹⁶Therefore I exhort you, become my imitators.

¹⁷On account of this I sent to you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, who will remind you of my ways that are in the Anointed One Jesus, even as everywhere in every assembly I teach.

¹⁸Now, as to my not coming to you, some were puffed up;

¹⁹but I will come to you soon, if the Lord wishes, and I will find out not the talk of those puffed up, but the power.

²⁰For the kingdom of God is not in word but in power.

²¹What do you desire? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness?