Chronological Plan

¹It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and sexual immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, namely, that someone has his father’s wife.

²You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst.

³For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present.

⁴In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled, and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus,

⁵I have decided to turn such a person over to Satan for the destruction of his body, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.

⁶Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?

⁷Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.

⁸Therefore let’s celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

⁹I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people;

¹⁰I did not at all mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the greedy and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to leave the world.

¹¹But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is a sexually immoral person, or a greedy person, or an idolater, or is verbally abusive, or habitually drunk, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a person.

¹²For what business of mine is it to judge outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church?

¹³But those who are outside, God judges. REMOVE THE EVIL PERSON FROM AMONG YOURSELVES.

¹Does any one of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints?

²Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? If the world is judged by you, are you not competent to form the smallest law courts?

³Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life?

⁴So if you have law courts dealing with matters of this life, do you appoint them as judges who are of no account in the church?

⁵I say this to your shame. Is it so, that there is not among you anyone wise who will be able to decide between his brothers and sisters,

⁶but brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers?

⁷Actually, then, it is already a defeat for you, that you have lawsuits with one another. Why not rather suffer the wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?

⁸On the contrary, you yourselves do wrong and defraud. And this to your brothers and sisters!

⁹Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals,

¹⁰nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor those habitually drunk, nor verbal abusers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.

¹¹Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

¹²All things are permitted for me, but not all things are of benefit. All things are permitted for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.

¹³Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, however God will do away with both of them. But the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.

¹⁴Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power.

¹⁵Do you not know that your bodies are parts of Christ? Shall I then take away the parts of Christ and make them parts of a prostitute? Far from it!

¹⁶Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH.”

¹⁷But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.

¹⁸Flee sexual immorality. Every other sin that a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

¹⁹Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?

²⁰For you have been bought for a price: therefore glorify God in your body.

¹Now concerning the things about which you wrote, it is good for a man not to touch a woman.

²But because of sexual immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband.

³The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise the wife also to her husband.

⁴The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise the husband also does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

⁵Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

⁶But this I say by way of concession, not of command.

⁷Yet I wish that all men were even as I myself am. However, each has his own gift from God, one in this way, and another in that.

⁸But I say to the unmarried and to widows that it is good for them if they remain even as I.

⁹But if they do not have self-control, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

¹⁰But to the married I give instructions, not I, but the Lord, that the wife is not to leave her husband

¹¹(but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband is not to divorce his wife.

¹²But to the rest I say, not the Lord, that if any brother has an unbelieving wife, and she consents to live with him, he must not divorce her.

¹³And if any woman has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to live with her, she must not divorce her husband.

¹⁴For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy.

¹⁵Yet if the unbelieving one is leaving, let him leave; the brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us in peace.

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

¹⁷Only, as the Lord has assigned to each one, as God has called each, in this way let him walk. And so I direct in all the churches.

¹⁸Was any man called when he was already circumcised? He is not to become uncircumcised. Has anyone been called in uncircumcision? He is not to be circumcised.

¹⁹Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but what matters is the keeping of the commandments of God.

²⁰Each person is to remain in that state in which he was called.

²¹Were you called as a slave? Do not let it concern you. But if you are also able to become free, take advantage of that.

²²For the one who was called in the Lord as a slave, is the Lord’s freed person; likewise the one who was called as free, is Christ’s slave.

²³You were bought for a price; do not become slaves of people.

²⁴Brothers and sisters, each one is to remain with God in that condition in which he was called.

²⁵Now concerning virgins, I have no command of the Lord, but I am offering direction as one who by the mercy of the Lord is trustworthy.

²⁶I think, then, that this is good in view of the present distress, that it is good for a man to remain as he is.

²⁷Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be released. Are you released from a wife? Do not seek a wife.

²⁸But if you marry, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. Yet such people as yourselves will have trouble in this life, and I am trying to spare you.

²⁹But this I say, brothers, the time has been shortened, so that from now on those who have wives should be as though they had none;

³⁰and those who weep, as though they did not weep; and those who rejoice, as though they did not rejoice; and those who buy, as though they did not possess;

³¹and those who use the world, as though they did not make full use of it; for the present form of this world is passing away.

³²But I want you to be free from concern. One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord;

³³but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife,

³⁴and his interests are divided. The woman who is unmarried, and the virgin, is concerned about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit; but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how she may please her husband.

³⁵I say this for your own benefit, not to put a restraint on you, but to promote what is appropriate and to secure undistracted devotion to the Lord.

³⁶But if anyone thinks that he is acting dishonorably toward his virgin, if she is past her youth and it ought to be so, let him do what he wishes, he is not sinning; let them marry.

³⁷But the one who stands firm in his heart, if he is not under constraint, but has authority over his own will, and has decided this in his own heart, to keep his own virgin, he will do well.

³⁸So then, both the one who gives his own virgin in marriage does well, and the one who does not give her in marriage will do better.

³⁹A wife is bound as long as her husband lives; but if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord.

⁴⁰But in my opinion she is happier if she remains as she is; and I think that I also have the Spirit of God.

¹Now concerning food sacrificed to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes one conceited, but love edifies people.

²If anyone thinks that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know;

³but if anyone loves God, he is known by Him.

⁴Therefore, concerning the eating of food sacrificed to idols, we know that an idol is nothing at all in the world, and that there is no God but one.

⁵For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords,

⁶yet for us there is only one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.

⁷However, not all people have this knowledge; but some, being accustomed to the idol until now, eat food as if it were sacrificed to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled.

⁸Now food will not bring us close to God; we are neither the worse if we do not eat, nor the better if we do eat.

⁹But take care that this freedom of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.

¹⁰For if someone sees you, the one who has knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, will his conscience, if he is weak, not be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idols?

¹¹For through your knowledge the one who is weak is ruined, the brother or sister for whose sake Christ died.

¹²And so, by sinning against the brothers and sisters and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ.

¹³Therefore, if food causes my brother to sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause my brother to sin.