9:1 Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are not you+ my work in the Lord?
9:2 If to others I am not an apostle, yet at least I am to you+; for the seal of my apostleship are you+ in the Lord.
9:3 My defense to those who examine me is this.
9:4 Do we have no right to eat and to drink?
9:5 Do we have no right to lead about a wife who is a sister, even as the rest of the apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?
9:6 Or only I and Barnabas, do we not have a right to forbear working?
9:7 What soldier ever serves at his own charges? Who plants a vineyard, and does not eat its fruit? Or who shepherds a flock, and does not eat of the milk of the flock?
9:8 Do I speak these things after the manner of men or doesn't the law also say the same?
9:9 For it is written in the law of Moses, You will not muzzle the ox when he treads out the corn. Is it for the oxen that God cares,
9:10 or does he say it assuredly for our sake? Yes, for our sake it was written: because he who plows ought to plow in hope, and he who threshes, [to thresh] in hope of partaking.
9:11 If we sowed to you+ spiritual things, is it a great matter if we will reap your+ carnal things?
9:12 If others partake of [this] right over you+, do not we yet more? Nevertheless we did not use this right; but we bear all things, that we may cause no hindrance to the good news of Christ.
9:13 Don't you+ know that those who work about sacred things eat [of] the things of the temple, [and] those who wait on the altar have their portion with the altar?
9:14 Even so the Lord directed that those who proclaim the good news should live of the good news.
9:15 But I have used none of these things: and I do not write these things that it may be so done in my case; for [it was] good for me rather to die, than that any man should make my glorying void.
9:16 For if I preach the good news, I have nothing to glory of; for necessity is laid on me; for woe is to me, if I do not preach the good news.
9:17 For if I participate in this of my own will, I have a reward: but if not of my own will, I have a stewardship entrusted to me.
9:18 What then is my reward? That, when I preach the good news, I may make the good news without charge, so as not to use to the full my right in the good news.
9:19 For though I was free from all [men], I became a slave to all, that I might gain the more.
9:20 And to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, not being myself under the law, that I might gain those who are under the law;
9:21 to those who are without the law, as without the law, not being without the law of God, but under the law of Christ, that I might gain those who are without the law.
9:22 To the weak I became weak, that I might gain the weak: I have become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some.
9:23 And I do all things for the sake of the good news, that I may be a copartner of it.
9:24 Don't you+ know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Even so run; that you+ may attain.
9:25 And every man who strives in the games exercises self-control in all things. Now they [do it] to receive a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.
9:26 I therefore so run, as not uncertainly; so I fight, not as beating the air:
9:27 but I buffet my body, and bring it into slavery: lest by any means, after I have preached to others, I myself should be disapproved.