9:1   Do I not have freedom? Do I not serve as an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Do you not represent my work in the Lord?

9:2   If others do not regard me as an apostle, at least I you do; for you represent the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

9:3   My defense to those who examine me consists of this:

9:4   Do we not have a right to eat and drink?

9:5   Do we not have a right to take along a believing wife, even as the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?

9:6   Or do only Barnabas and I not have a right to refrain from working?

9:7   Who at any time serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat the fruit of it? Or who tends a flock and does not use the milk of the flock?

9:8   I do not speak these things according to human judgment, do I? Or does not the Law also say these things?

9:9   For the scriptures read in the Law of Moses, " YOU SHALL NOT MUZZLE THE OX WHILE HE THRESHES " God does not concern Himself about oxen, does He?

9:10   Or does He speak altogether for our sake? Yes, for our sake it appeared in scripture, because the plowman ought to plow in hope, and the thresher to thresh in hope of sharing the crops.

9:11   If we sowed spiritual things in you, does it seem too much if we reap material things from you?

9:12   If others share the right over you, do we not more? Nevertheless, we did not use this right, but we endure all things so that we will cause no hindrance to the gospel of Christ.

9:13   Do you not know that those who perform sacred services eat the food of the temple, and those who attend regularly to the altar have their share from the altar?

9:14   So also the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel.

9:15   But I have used none of these things And I do not write these things so that it happen in my case; for I would rather die than have any man make my boast an empty one.

9:16  For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for I feel under compulsion; for woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.

9:17   For if I do this voluntarily, I have a reward; but if against my will, I have a stewardship entrusted to me.

9:18  What then constitutes my reward? That, when I preach the gospel, I may offer the gospel without charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel.

9:19   For though I have freedom from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I may win more.

9:20   To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law though not considering myself under the Law, so that I might win those who live under the Law;

9:21  

9:22   To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some.

9:23   I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a fellow partaker of it.

9:24   Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.

9:25   Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.

9:26   Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air;

9:27   but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not receive disqualification.