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UST 1COR Chapter 6

6 When someone from your group quarrels with another person from your group, you should never settle the quarrel in a public court in front of people who do not believe. Rather, you should settle the quarrel in private among the people whom God has set apart for himself. 2 Surely you know that the people whom God has set apart for himself will decide whether all things and people that God has created are guilty or innocent. Since you will decide whether all these things and people are guilty or innocent, you can surely decide about small quarrels within your group. 3 You need to realize that we will decide whether angels are innocent or guilty. Since we will do that, we are certainly able to decide about disputes related to our current lives. 4 Therefore, whenever you quarrel with one another concerning your current lives, you should not choose people who are not part of your group of believers to decide who is guilty or innocent. 5 I include what I have just said in order to make you feel ashamed. Surely there are people in your group who are wise enough to be able to decide about disputes among fellow believers. 6 But instead, some believers among you accuse other believers in a legal court, and people who do not believe settle the dispute.

7 Because you have disputes with each other, you have already completely failed to follow Jesus. Rather than failing in this way, you should instead forgive fellow believers when they harm or defraud you. 8 Rather than forgiving others, however, you have harmed and defrauded other people. In fact, you have done these things to fellow believers!

9 I am shocked that you do these things even though you realize that people who harm others will not participate in God’s kingdom. Do not believe anyone who tells you something else. Anyone who has improper sex or who worships other gods or who has sex with a married person or who participates in sexual acts with a person of the same gender or who initiates sexual acts with a person of the same gender 10 or who steals from others or who wants more than he or she needs or who gets drunk or who abuses others with words or who cheats others will not participate in God’s kingdom. 11 Some of you used to behave in these ways. However, now God has cleansed you, he has made you holy, and he has declared you to be innocent. You experience these things because the Lord Jesus the Messiah and the Holy Spirit work powerfully to give them to you.

12 Some of you say, “I can do anything and not become guilty.” However, I say that some things are not helpful to anybody. Again, some of you say, “I can do anything and not become guilty.” However, I say that I will not serve anything that will make me its slave. 13 Some of you say, “Food exists for a person’s stomach to digest it, and a person’s stomach exists to digest food.” Indeed, I also say that God will make food and stomachs unimportant. While it is true that food exists for a person’s stomach, the human body does not exist for a person to have improper sex with it. Instead, the human body exists to serve the Lord, and the Lord has worked to save the human body. 14 In fact, God made the Lord alive again, and he will work powerfully to make us also alive again.

15 Surely you know that your bodies belong to the Messiah, just as if you were his body parts. Because of that, you should not take your body back and then give it to a prostitute, so that your body belongs to her, just as if you were her body parts. Never do that! 16 Surely you know that a man who has sex with a prostitute unites himself to her as closely as if they shared the same body. You should know this because the scripture says, “The man and the woman, although two people, will become like one person.” 17 In a similar way, any people who unite themselves to the Lord become spiritually one with the Lord.

18 Intentionally avoid having improper sex. When people sin, they usually do so without directly hurting their bodies. However, when people have improper sex, they do hurt their own bodies. 19 Surely you know that God has given the Holy Spirit to you. Therefore, your bodies are like temples for the Holy Spirit, since he unites himself to you like how a god unites himself to his temple. Because of that, you do not belong to yourselves. 20 Rather, you belong to God, since the Messiah died for you. When he died for you, it was as if God paid money to buy you. Because you belong to God, you must honor him whenever you do anything with your body.

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