Open English Translation 1COR Chapter 3

3 So brothers and sisters, because you were baby Christians when I visited, I wasn’t able to speak to you all like spiritual people, but only like worldly people. 2 I gave you all milk to drink, because you weren’t ready for solid food, in fact, you still aren’t[ref] 3 because you’re still worldly, because seeing the jealousy and dissension among you tells us that you’re all still worldly and just living by human values. 4 Yes, when one person says, ‘I follow Paul,’ and another person says, ‘I follow Apollos’, doesn’t that show that you’re just worldly?[ref]

5 Indeed, who’s Apollos? Who’s Paul? We’re just servants who brought you all the message when you believed, each one as the master led them.[fn] 6 I planted the seed and Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.[ref] 7 That means that neither the planter or the waterer counts for anything, only the grower, God. 8 The planter and the waterer work together, and each of them will be rewarded for their work, 9 because we are God’s co-workers.

You all are God’s field, or in a different image, his building. 10 Using the gifts that God has given me as a wise master-builder, I laid down a foundation and then someone else is building on it. But they need to take care about how they build on it 11 because no one can lay a different foundation than the one already laid down, and that foundation is Yeshua Messiah. 12 Now if anyone builds on top of the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, 13 then their work will become obvious because it will be revealed on the day of judgement because it will be shown up by fire. The fire will expose what sort of building their work created: 14 if anyone’s work that they built survives the fire, those people will be rewarded, 15 but if their work is incinerated, those people will lose out, although they themselves will be saved but as if they’ve been through the flames.

16 Don’t you realise that you yourselves are God’s temple, and that God’s spirit lives inside you all?[ref] 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, then God will destroy that person because his temple is sacred, as are all of you.

18 Don’t let any of you fool yourselves. If anyone of you thinks they’re wise by worldly standards, then let those people become ‘foolish’ so that they really can become wise 19 because this world’s wisdom is foolishness with God, because as it’s written: ‘He catches out the wise in their craftiness.’[ref] 20 And further: ‘The master knows that the thoughts of wise people are useless.’[ref] 21 So then, don’t let anyone boast about people, because everything already belongs to all of you. 22 Don’t boast about Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world or life or death, or the present or the future. All of them belong to you, 23 and you belong to Messiah, and Messiah belongs to God.