First Letter to the Corinthians

We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You have honor, but we have dishonor.

Even to this present hour we hunger, thirst, are naked, are beaten, and have no certain dwelling place.

We toil, working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless. Being persecuted, we endure.

Being defamed, we entreat. We are made as the filth of the world, the dirt wiped off by all, even until now.

I don't write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children.

For though you have ten thousand tutors in Christ, yet not many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, I became your father through the gospel.

I beg you therefore, be imitators of me.

Because of this I have sent Timothy to you, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, who will remind you of my ways which are in Christ, even as I teach everywhere in every assembly.

Now some are puffed up, as though I were not coming to you.

But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord is willing. And I will know, not the word of those who are puffed up, but the power.

For the Kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.

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

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles, that one has his father's wife.

You are puffed up, and didn't rather mourn, that he who had done this deed might be removed from among you.

For I most assuredly, as being absent in body but present in spirit, have already, as though I were present, judged him who has done this thing.

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, you being gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,