3:1 And I, brothers and sisters, could not speak to you as spiritual people, but only as fleshly, as to infants in Christ.
3:2 I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to consume it. But even now you are not yet able,
3:3 for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like ordinary people?
3:4 For when one person says, “I am ①with Paul,” and another, “I am ②with Apollos,” are you not ordinary people?
▷ ①Lit of ②Lit of
3:5 What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one.
3:6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth.
3:7 So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth.
3:8 Now the one who plants and the one who waters are one; but each will receive his own ①reward according to his own labor.
▷ ①Or wages
3:9 For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s ①field, God’s building.
▷ ①Or cultivated land
3:10 According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each person must be careful how he builds on it.
3:11 For no one can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
3:12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw,
3:13 each one’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test ①the quality of each one’s work.
▷ ①Lit of what sort each man’s work is
3:14 If anyone’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward.
3:15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet only so as through fire.
3:16 Do you not know that you are a ①temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
▷ ①Or sanctuary
3:17 If anyone destroys the ①temple of God, God will destroy ②that person; for the ③temple of God is holy, ④and that is what you are.
▷ ①Or sanctuary ②Lit this ③Or sanctuary ④Lit who you are
3:18 Take care that no one deceives himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise.
3:19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the sight of God. For it is written: “He is THE ONE WHO CATCHES THE WISE BY THEIR CRAFTINESS”;
3:20 and again, “THE LORD KNOWS THE THOUGHTS of the wise, THAT THEY ARE useless.”
3:21 So then, no one is to be boasting in people. For all things belong to you,
3:22 whether Paul or Apollos or ①Cephas, or the world or life or death, or things present or things to come; all things belong to you,
▷ ①Peter’s Aramaic name
3:23 and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.