Complete Jewish Bible (CJB)

1 This will be the third time that I have come to visit you. Any charge must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.

2 To those who sinned in the past and to the rest I say beforehand while absent the same thing I said when I was with you the second time: if I come again I will not spare you —

3 since you are looking for proof of the Messiah speaking in me. He is not weak in dealing with you, but he is powerful among you.

4 For although he was executed on a stake in weakness, now he lives by God’s power. And we too are weak in union with him, but in dealing with you we will live with him by God’s power.

5 Examine yourselves to see whether you are living the life of trust. Test yourselves. Don’t you realize that Yeshua the Messiah is in you? — unless you fail to pass the test.

6 But I hope you will realize that we are not failures.

7 And we pray to God that you will do nothing wrong. We are not concerned with our appearing successful, but with your doing what is right, even if we appear to be failures.

8 For we cannot act against the truth, only for it.

9 So we rejoice whenever we are weak and you are strong; indeed, what we pray for is that you become perfect.

10 I write these things while away from you, so that when I am with you I will not have to use my authority to deal sharply with you, for the Lord gave it to me for building up and not for tearing down.

11 And now, brothers,shalom!Put yourselves in order, pay attention to my advice, be of one mind, live inshalom— and the God of love andshalomwill be with you.

12 Greet one another with a holy kiss.

13 All God’s people send greetings to you.

14 The grace of the Lord Yeshua the Messiah,

the love of God

and the fellowship of theRuach HaKodesh

be with you all.

1 From: Sha’ul, called by God’s will to be an emissary of the Messiah Yeshua; and from brother Sosthenes

2 To: God’s Messianic community in Corinth, consisting of those who have been set apart by Yeshua the Messiah and called to be God’s holy people — along with everyone everywhere who calls on the name of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, their Lord as well as ours:

3 Grace to you andshalomfrom God our Father and the Lord Yeshua the Messiah.

4 I thank my God always for you because of God’s love and kindness given to you through the Messiah Yeshua,

5 in that you have been enriched by him in so many ways, particularly in power of speech and depth of knowledge.

6 Indeed, the testimony about the Messiah has become firmly established in you;

7 so that you are not lacking any spiritual gift and are eagerly awaiting the revealing of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah.

8 He will enable you to hold out until the end and thus be blameless on the Day of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah —

9 God is trustworthy: it was he who called you into fellowship with his Son, Yeshua the Messiah, our Lord.

10 Nevertheless, brothers, I call on you in the name of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah to agree, all of you, in what you say, and not to let yourselves remain split into factions but be restored to having a common mind and a common purpose.

11 For some of Chloe’s people have made it known to me, my brothers, that there are quarrels among you.

12 I say this because one of you says, “I follow Sha’ul”; another says, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Kefa”; while still another says, “I follow the Messiah!”

13 Has the Messiah been split in pieces? Was it Sha’ul who was put to death on a stake for you? Were you immersed into the name of Sha’ul?

14 I thank God that I didn’t immerse any of you except Crispus and Gaius —

15 otherwise someone might say that you were indeed immersed into my name.

16 (Oh yes, I did also immerse Stephanas and his household; beyond that, I can’t remember whether I immersed anyone else.)

17 For the Messiah did not send me to immerse but to proclaim the Good News — and to do it without relying on “wisdom” that consists of mere rhetoric, so as not to rob the Messiah’s execution-stake of its power.

18 For the message about the execution-stake is nonsense to those in the process of being destroyed, but to us in the process of being saved it is the power of God.

19 Indeed, theTanakhsays,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise

and frustrate the intelligence of the intelligent.”

20 Where does that leave the philosopher, theTorah-teacher, or any of today’s thinkers? Hasn’t God made this world’s wisdom look pretty foolish?

21 For God’s wisdom ordained that the world, using its own wisdom, would not come to know him. Therefore God decided to use the “nonsense” of what we proclaim as his means of saving those who come to trust in it.

22 Precisely because Jews ask for signs and Greeks try to find wisdom,

23 we go on proclaiming a Messiah executed on a stake as a criminal! To Jews this is an obstacle, and to Greeks it is nonsense;

24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, this same Messiah is God’s power and God’s wisdom!

25 For God’s “nonsense” is wiser than humanity’s “wisdom.”

And God’s “weakness” is stronger than humanity’s “strength.”

26 Just look at yourselves, brothers — look at those whom God has called! Not many of you are wise by the world’s standards, not many wield power or boast noble birth.

27 But God chose what the world considers nonsense in order to shame the wise; God chose what the world considers weak in order to shame the strong;

28 and God chose what the world looks down on as common or regards as nothing in order to bring to nothing what the world considers important;

29 so that no one should boast before God.

30 It is his doing that you are united with the Messiah Yeshua. He has become wisdom for us from God, and righteousness and holiness and redemption as well!

31 Therefore — as theTanakhsays — “Let anyone who wants to boast, boast aboutAdonai.”

1 As for me, brothers, when I arrived among you, it was not with surpassing eloquence or wisdom that I came announcing to you the previously concealed truth about God;

2 for I had decided that while I was with you I would forget everything except Yeshua the Messiah, and even him only as someone who had been executed on a stake as a criminal.

3 Also I myself was with you as somebody weak, nervous and shaking all over from fear;

4 and neither the delivery nor the content of my message relied on compelling words of “wisdom” but on a demonstration of the power of the Spirit,

5 so that your trust might not rest on human wisdom but on God’s power.

6 Yet there is a wisdom that we are speaking to those who are mature enough for it. But it is not the wisdom of this world or of this world’s leaders, who are in the process of passing away.

7 On the contrary, we are communicating a secret wisdom from God which has been hidden until now but which, before history began, God had decreed would bring us glory.

8 Not one of this world’s leaders has understood it; because if they had, they would not have executed the Lord from whom this glory flows.

9 But, as theTanakhsays,

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard

and no one’s heart has imagined

all the things that God has prepared

for those who love him.”

10 It is to us, however, that God has revealed these things. How? Through the Spirit. For the Spirit probes all things, even the profoundest depths of God.

11 For who knows the inner workings of a person except the person’s own spirit inside him? So too no one knows the inner workings of God except God’s Spirit.

12 Now we have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit of God, so that we might understand the things God has so freely given us.

13 These are the things we are talking about when we avoid the manner of speaking that human wisdom would dictate and instead use a manner of speaking taught by the Spirit, by which we explain things of the Spirit to people who have the Spirit.

14 Now the natural man does not receive the things from the Spirit of God — to him they are nonsense! Moreover, he is unable to grasp them, because they are evaluated through the Spirit.

15 But the person who has the Spirit can evaluate everything, while no one is in a position to evaluate him.

16 For who has known the mind ofAdonai?

Who will counsel him?

But we have the mind of the Messiah!

1 As for me, brothers, I couldn’t talk to you as spiritual people but as worldly people, as babies, so far as experience with the Messiah is concerned.

2 I gave you milk, not solid food, because you were not yet ready for it. But you aren’t ready for it now either!

3 For you are still worldly! Isn’t it obvious from all the jealousy and quarrelling among you that you are worldly and living by merely human standards?

4 For when one says, “I follow Sha’ul” and another, “I follow Apollos,” aren’t you being merely human?

5 After all, what is Apollos? What is Sha’ul? Only servants through whom you came to trust. Indeed, it was the Lord who brought you to trust through one of us or through another.

6 I planted the seed, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow.

7 So neither the planter nor the waterer is anything, only God who makes things grow —

8 planter and waterer are the same.

However, each will be rewarded according to his work.

9 For we are God’s co-workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.

10 Using the grace God gave me, I laid a foundation, like a skilled master-builder; and another man is building on it. But let each one be careful how he builds.

11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Yeshua the Messiah.

12 Some will use gold, silver or precious stones in building on this foundation; while others will use wood, grass or straw.

13 But each one’s work will be shown for what it is; the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire — the fire will test the quality of each one’s work.

14 If the work someone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward;

15 if it is burned up, he will have to bear the loss: he will still escape with his life, but it will be like escaping through a fire.

16 Don’t you know that you people are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?

17 So if anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you yourselves are that temple.

18 Let no one fool himself. If someone among you thinks he is wise (by this world’s standards), let him become “foolish,” so that he may become really wise.

19 For the wisdom of this world is nonsense, as far as God is concerned; inasmuch as theTanakhsays, “He traps the wise in their own cleverness,”

20 and again, “Adonaiknows that the thoughts of the wise are worthless.”

21 So let no one boast about human beings, for all things are yours —

22 whether Sha’ul or Apollos or Kefa or the world or life or death or the present or the future: they all belong to you,

23 and you belong to the Messiah, and the Messiah belongs to God.

1 So, you should regard us as the Messiah’s servants, as trustees of God’s secret truths.

2 Now the one thing that is asked of a trustee is that he be found trustworthy.

3 And it matters very little to me how I am evaluated by you or by any human court; in fact, I don’t even evaluate myself.

4 I am not aware of anything against me, but this does not make me innocent. The one who is evaluating me is the Lord.

5 So don’t pronounce judgment prematurely, before the Lord comes; for he will bring to light what is now hidden in darkness; he will expose the motives of people’s hearts; and then each will receive from God whatever praise he deserves.

6 Now in what I have said here, brothers, I have used myself and Apollos as examples to teach you not to go beyond what theTanakhsays, proudly taking the side of one leader against another.

7 After all, what makes you so special? What do you have that you didn’t receive as a gift? And if in fact it was a gift, why do you boast as if it weren’t?

8 You are glutted already? You are rich already? You have become kings, even though we are not? Well, I wish you really were kings, so that we might share the kingship with you!

9 For I think God has been placing us emissaries on display at the tail of the parade, like men condemned to die in the public arena: we have become a spectacle before the whole universe, angels as well as men.

10 For the Messiah’s sake we are fools, but united with the Messiah you are wise! We are weak, but you are strong; you are honored, but we are dishonored.

11 Till this very moment we go hungry and thirsty, we are dressed in rags, we are treated roughly, we wander from place to place,

12 we exhaust ourselves working with our own hands for our living. When we are cursed, we keep on blessing; when we are persecuted, we go on putting up with it;

13 when we are slandered, we continue making our appeal. We are the world’s garbage, the scum of the earth — yes, to this moment!

14 I am not writing you this to make you feel ashamed, but, as my dear children, to confront you and get you to change.

15 For even if you have ten thousand trainers in connection with the Messiah, you do not have many fathers; for in connection with the Messiah Yeshua it was I who became your father by means of the Good News.

16 Therefore I urge you to imitate me.

17 This is why I have sent you Timothy, my beloved and trustworthy child in the Lord. He will remind you of the way of life I follow in union with the Messiah Yeshua and teach everywhere in every congregation.

18 When I didn’t come to visit you, some of you became arrogant.

19 But I am coming to you soon, if the Lord wills; and I will take cognizance not of the talk of these arrogant people but of their power.

20 For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of words but of power.

21 Which do you prefer — should I come to you with a stick? or with love in a spirit of gentleness?

1 It is actually being reported that there is sexual sin among you, and it is sexual sin of a kind that is condemned even by pagans — a man is living with his stepmother!

2 And you stay proud? Shouldn’t you rather have felt some sadness that would have led you to remove from your company the man who has done this thing?

3 For I myself, even though I am absent physically, am with you spiritually; and I have already judged the man who has done this as if I were present.

4 In the name of the Lord Yeshua, when you are assembled, with me present spiritually and the power of our Lord Yeshua among us,

5 hand over such a person to the Adversary for his old nature to be destroyed, so that his spirit may be saved in the Day of the Lord.

6 Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know the saying, “It takes only a littlehametzto leaven a whole batch of dough?”

7 Get rid of the oldhametz, so that you can be a new batch of dough, because in reality you are unleavened. For ourPesachlamb, the Messiah, has been sacrificed.

8 So let us celebrate theSedernot with leftoverhametz,thehametzof wickedness and evil, but with thematzahof purity and truth.

9 In my earlier letter I wrote you not to associate with people who engage in sexual immorality.

10 I didn’t mean the sexually immoral people outside your community, or the greedy, or the thieves or the idol-worshippers — for then you would have to leave the world altogether!

11 No, what I wrote you was not to associate with anyone who is supposedly a brother but who also engages in sexual immorality, is greedy, worships idols, is abusive, gets drunk or steals. With such a person you shouldn’t even eat!

12 For what business is it of mine to judge outsiders? Isn’t it those who are part of the community that you should be judging?

13 God will judge those who are outside. Just expel the evildoer from among yourselves.

1 How dare one of you with a complaint against another go to court before pagan judges and not before God’s people?

2 Don’t you know that God’s people are going to judge the universe? If you are going to judge the universe, are you incompetent to judge these minor matters?

3 Don’t you know that we will judge angels, not to mention affairs of everyday life?

4 So if you require judgments about matters of everyday life, why do you put them in front of men who have no standing in the Messianic Community?

5 I say, shame on you! Can it be that there isn’t one person among you wise enough to be able to settle a dispute between brothers?

6 Instead, a brother brings a lawsuit against another brother, and that before unbelievers!

7 Actually, if you are bringing lawsuits against each other, it is already a defeat for you. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?

8 Instead, you yourselves wrong and cheat; and you do it to your own brothers!

9 Don’t you know that unrighteous people will have no share in the Kingdom of God? Don’t delude yourselves — people who engage in sex before marriage, who worship idols, who engage in sex after marriage with someone other than their spouse, who engage in active or passive homosexuality,

10 who steal, who are greedy, who get drunk, who assail people with contemptuous language, who rob — none of them will share in the Kingdom of God.

11 Some of you used to do these things. But you have cleansed yourselves, you have been set apart for God, you have come to be counted righteous through the power of the Lord Yeshua the Messiah and the Spirit of our God.

12 You say, “For me, everything is permitted”? Maybe, but not everything is helpful. “For me, everything is permitted”? Maybe, but as far as I am concerned, I am not going to let anything gain control over me.

13 “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”? Maybe, but God will put an end to both of them. Anyhow, the body is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.

14 God raised up the Lord, and he will raise us up too by his power.

15 Don’t you know that your bodies are parts of the Messiah? So, am I to take parts of the Messiah and make them parts of a prostitute? Heaven forbid!

16 Don’t you know that a man who joins himself to a prostitute becomes physically one with her? For theTanakhsays, “The two will become one flesh”;

17 but the person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.

18 Run from sexual immorality! Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the fornicator sins against his own body.

19 Or don’t you know that your body is a temple for theRuach HaKodeshwho lives inside you, whom you received from God? The fact is, you don’t belong to yourselves;

20 for you were bought at a price. So use your bodies to glorify God.

1 Now to deal with the questions you wrote about: “Is it good for a man to keep away from women?”

2 Well, because of the danger of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife and each woman her own husband.

3 The husband should give his wife what she is entitled to in the marriage relationship, and the wife should do the same for her husband.

4 The wife is not in charge of her own body, but her husband is; likewise, the husband is not in charge of his own body, but his wife is.

5 Do not deprive each other, except for a limited time, by mutual agreement, and then only so as to have extra time for prayer; but afterwards, come together again. Otherwise, because of your lack of self-control, you may succumb to the Adversary’s temptation.

6 I am giving you this as a suggestion, not as a command.

7 Actually, I wish everyone were like me; but each has his own gift from God, one this, another that.

8 Now to the single people and the widows I say that it is fine if they remain unmarried like me;

9 but if they can’t exercise self-control, they should get married; because it is better to get married than to keep burning with sexual desire.

10 To those who are married I have a command, and it is not from me but from the Lord: a woman is not to separate herself from her husband

11 But if she does separate herself, she is to remain single or be reconciled with her husband. Also, a husband is not to leave his wife.

12 To the rest I say — I, not the Lord: if any brother has a wife who is not a believer, and she is satisfied to go on living with him, he should not leave her.

13 Also, if any woman has an unbelieving husband who is satisfied to go on living with her, she is not to leave him.

14 For the unbelieving husband has been set aside for God by the wife, and the unbelieving wife has been set aside for God by the brother — otherwise your children would be “unclean,” but as it is, they are set aside for God.

15 But if the unbelieving spouse separates himself, let him be separated. In circumstances like these, the brother or sister is not enslaved — God has called you to a life of peace.

16 For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

17 Only let each person live the life the Lord has assigned him and live it in the condition he was in when God called him. This is the rule I lay down in all the congregations.

18 Was someone already circumcised when he was called? Then he should not try to remove the marks of his circumcision. Was someone uncircumcised when he was called? He shouldn’t undergob’rit-milah.

19 Being circumcised means nothing, and being uncircumcised means nothing; what does mean something is keeping God’s commandments.

20 Each person should remain in the condition he was in when he was called.

21 Were you a slave when you were called? Well, don’t let it bother you; although if you can gain your freedom, take advantage of the opportunity.

22 For a person who was a slave when he was called is the Lord’s freedman; likewise, someone who was a free man when he was called is a slave of the Messiah.

23 You were bought at a price, so do not become slaves of other human beings.

24 Brothers, let each one remain with God in the condition in which he was called.

25 Now the question about the unmarried: I do not have a command from the Lord, but I offer an opinion as one who by the Lord’s mercy is worthy to be trusted.

26 I suppose that in a time of stress like the present it is good for a person to stay as he is.

27 That means that if a man has a wife, he should not seek to be free of her; and if he is unmarried, he should not look for a wife.

28 But if you marry you do not sin, and if a girl marries she does not sin. It is just that those who get married will have the normal problems of married life, and I would rather spare you.

29 What I am saying, brothers, is that there is not much time left: from now on a man with a wife should live as if he had none —

30 and those who are sad should live as if they weren’t, those who are happy as if they weren’t,

31 and those who deal in worldly affairs as if not engrossed in them — because the present scheme of things in this world won’t last much longer.

32 What I want is for you to be free of concern. An unmarried man concerns himself with the Lord’s affairs,

33 with how to please the Lord; but the married man concerns himself with the world’s affairs, with how to please his wife;

34 and he finds himself split. Likewise the woman who is no longer married or the girl who has never been married concerns herself with the Lord’s affairs, with how to be holy both physically and spiritually; but the married woman concerns herself with the world’s affairs, with how to please her husband.

35 I am telling you this for your own benefit, not to put restrictions on you — I am simply concerned that you live in a proper manner and serve the Lord with undivided devotion.

36 Now if a man thinks he is behaving dishonorably by treating his fiancée this way, and if there is strong sexual desire, so that marriage is what ought to happen; then let him do what he wants — he is not sinning: let them get married.

37 But if a man has firmly made up his mind, being under no compulsion but having complete control over his will, if he has decided within himself to keep his fiancée a virgin, he will be doing well.

38 So the man who marries his fiancée will do well, and the man who doesn’t marry will do better.

39 A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives, but if the husband dies she is free to marry anyone she wishes, provided he is a believer in the Lord.

40 However, in my opinion, she will be happier if she remains unmarried, and in saying this I think I have God’s Spirit.

1 Now about food sacrificed to idols: we know that, as you say, “We all have knowledge.” Yes, that is so, but “knowledge” puffs a person up with pride; whereas love builds up.

2 The person who thinks he “knows” something doesn’t yet know in the way he ought to know.

3 However, if someone loves God, God knows him.

4 So, as for eating food sacrificed to idols, we “know” that, as you say, “An idol has no real existence in the world, and there is only one God.”

5 For even if there are so-called “gods,” either in heaven or on earth — as in fact there are “gods” and “lords” galore —

6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom all things come and for whom we exist; and one Lord, Yeshua the Messiah, through whom were created all things and through whom we have our being.

7 But not everyone has this knowledge. Moreover, some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat food which has been sacrificed to them, they think of it as really affected by the idol; and their consciences, being weak, are thus defiled.

8 Now food will not improve our relationship with God — we will be neither poorer if we abstain nor richer if we eat.

9 However watch out that your mastery of the situation does not become a stumbling block to the weak.

10 You have this “knowledge”; but suppose someone with a weak conscience sees you sitting, eating a meal in the temple of an idol. Won’t he be built up wrongly to eat this food which has been sacrificed to idols?

11 Thus by your “knowledge” this weak person is destroyed, this brother for whom the Messiah died;

12 and so, when you sin against the brothers by wounding their conscience when it is weak, you are sinning against the Messiah!

13 To sum up, if food will be a snare for my brother, I will never eat meat again, lest I cause my brother to sin.

1 Am I not a free man? Am I not an emissary of the Messiah? Haven’t I seen Yeshua our Lord? And aren’t you yourselves the result of my work for the Lord?

2 Even if to others I am not an emissary, at least I am to you; for you are living proof that I am the Lord’s emissary.

3 That is my defense when people put me under examination.

4 Don’t we have the right to be given food and drink?

5 Don’t we have the right to take along with us a believing wife, as do the other emissaries, also the Lord’s brothers and Kefa?

6 Or are Bar-Nabba and I the only ones required to go on working for our living?

7 Did you ever hear of a soldier paying his own expenses? or of a farmer planting a vineyard without eating its grapes? Who shepherds a flock without drinking some of the milk?

8 What I am saying is not based merely on human authority, because theTorahsays the same thing —

9 for in theTorahof Moshe it is written, “You are not to put a muzzle on an ox when it is treading out the grain.” If God is concerned about cattle,

10 all the more does he say this for our sakes. Yes, it was written for us, meaning that he who plows and he who threshes should work expecting to get a share of the crop.

11 If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you?

12 If others are sharing in this right to be supported by you, don’t we have a greater claim to it?

But we don’t make use of this right. Rather, we put up with all kinds of things so as not to impede in any way the Good News about the Messiah.

13 Don’t you know that those who work in the Temple get their food from the Temple, and those who serve at the altar get a share of the sacrifices offered there?

14 In the same way, the Lord directed that those who proclaim the Good News should get their living from the Good News.

15 But I have not made use of any of these rights. Nor am I writing now to secure them for myself, for I would rather die than be deprived of my ground for boasting!

16 For I can’t boast merely because I proclaim the Good News — this I do from inner compulsion: woe is me if I don’t proclaim the Good News!

17 For if I do this willingly, I have a reward; but if I do it unwillingly, I still do it, simply because I’ve been entrusted with a job.

18 So then, what is my reward? Just this: that in proclaiming the Good News I can make it available free of charge, without making use of the rights to which it entitles me.

19 For although I am a free man, not bound to do anyone’s bidding, I have made myself a slave to all in order to win as many people as possible.

20 That is, with Jews, what I did was put myself in the position of a Jew, in order to win Jews. With people in subjection to a legalistic perversion of theTorah, I put myself in the position of someone under such legalism, in order to win those under this legalism, even though I myself am not in subjection to a legalistic perversion of theTorah.

21 With those who live outside the framework ofTorah, I put myself in the position of someone outside theTorahin order to win those outside theTorah— although I myself am not outside the framework of God’sTorahbut within the framework ofTorahas upheld by the Messiah.

22 With the “weak” I became “weak,” in order to win the “weak.” With all kinds of people I have become all kinds of things, so that in all kinds of circumstances I might save at least some of them.

23 But I do it all because of the rewards promised by the Good News, so that I may share in them along with the others who come to trust.

24 Don’t you know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one wins the prize? So then, run to win!

25 Now every athlete in training submits himself to strict discipline, and he does it just to win a laurel wreath that will soon wither away. But we do it to win a crown that will last forever.

26 Accordingly, I don’t run aimlessly but straight for the finish line; I don’t shadow-box but try to make every punch count.

27 I treat my body hard and make it my slave so that, after proclaiming the Good News to others, I myself will not be disqualified.