Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Haven’t I seen ‘Isa al-Masih, our Lord? Aren’t you my work in the Lord? 2If to others I am not an apostle, yet at least I am to you; for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. 3My defense to those who examine me is this. 4Have we no right to eat and to drink? 5Have we no right to take along a wife who is a believer, even as the rest of the apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas? 6Or have only Barnabas and I no right to not work? 7What soldier ever serves at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard, and does not eat of its fruit? Or who feeds a flock, and does not drink from the flock’s milk? 8Do I speak these things according to the ways of men? Or does not the Taurat also say the same thing? 9For it is written in the Taurat of Musa, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.“[1] Is it just for the oxen that Allah cares? 10Or does he say it also for our sake? Yes, it was written for our sake, because he who plows ought to plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope should partake of his hope. 11If we sowed to you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we reap your fleshly things? 12If others partake of this right over you, do not we yet more? Nevertheless we did not use this right, but we bear all things, that we may cause no hindrance to the Injilof al-Masih. 13Don’t you know that those who serve around sacred things eat from the things of the temple, and those who wait on the altar have their portion with the altar? 14Even so the Lord ordained that those who proclaim the Injil should live from the Injil. 15But I have used none of these things, and I do not write these things that it may be done so in my case; for I would rather die, than that anyone should make my boasting void. 16For if I preach the Injil, I have nothing to boast about; for necessity is laid on me; but woe is to me, if I do not preach the Injil. 17For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward. But if not of my own will, I have a stewardship entrusted to me. 18What then is my reward? That, when I preach the Injil, I may present the Injil of al-Masih without charge, so as not to abuse my authority in the Injil. 19For though I was free from all, I brought myself under bondage to all, that I might gain the more. 20To the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain Jews; to those who are under the Jewish shariah, as under shariah, that I might gain those who are under shariah; 21to those who are without shariah, as without shariah (not being without a shariah before Allah, but under al-Masih’s “shariah”), that I might win those who are without shariah. 22To the weak I became as weak, that I might gain the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some. 23Now I do this for the Injil’s sake, that I may be a joint partaker of it. 24Don’t you know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run like that, that you may win. 25Every man who strives in the games exercises self-control in all things. Now they do it to receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. 26I therefore run like that, as not uncertainly. I fight like that, as not beating the air, 27but I beat my body and bring it into submission, lest by any means, after I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected.
[1] 9:9 Quoting the Taurat, Deuteronomy 25:4.