1 Corinthians 3

1As for me, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as people of the Spirit. I had to speak to you as people of mere flesh, as infants in Christ. 2Milk was what I gave you to drink, not solid food, since you could not yet take it. In fact, even now you still cannot take it, 3because you are still living by the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not living by the flesh and behaving in a merely human way? 4When one of you says, “I am for Paul,” and another, “I am for Apollos,” is that not how people talk who live on a merely human level? 5What, then, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, each doing the work the Lord assigned. 6I planted, Apollos watered, but it was God who kept making it grow. 7So the one who plants does not count for anything, nor does the one who waters. What counts is God, who gives the growth. 8The one who plants and the one who waters work as one, and each will be rewarded according to the labor each has done. 9For we are fellow workers in God’s service, and you are God’s field, God’s building.

10Using the grace God gave me, I set a foundation in place like an expert builder, and another person is now building on top of it. But each one must take care how to build on it. 11For there is no other foundation anyone can lay; the one already in place is Jesus Christ. 12If anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13each builder’s work will come out into the open. The Day will make it plain, since that Day arrives in fire, and the fire itself will prove what kind of work each one has done. 14If what someone has built on the foundation survives, that builder will receive a reward. 15If someone’s work burns up, that person will suffer loss. The builder will still be saved, but only as one who comes out through the fire.

16Do you not know that together you are God’s temple, and that God’s Spirit lives among you? 17If anyone brings ruin on the temple of God, God will bring ruin on that person. The temple of God is holy, and you are that temple.

18Let no one fool themselves. Anyone among you who thinks they are wise in this present age must become a fool in order to become wise. 19What this world calls wisdom is foolishness in the eyes of God, for Scripture says, “He traps the wise in their own cleverness.” 20And again, “The Lord knows how empty the reasonings of the wise are.” 21So let no one take pride in mere human beings. Everything is yours: 22Paul or Apollos or Cephas, the world, life or death, what is here now or what is still to come. It all belongs to you, 23and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.