3:1 Brothers and sisters, I couldn't talk to you as spiritual people but as people still influenced by your corrupt nature. You were infants in your faith in Christ.
3:2 I gave you milk to drink. I didn't give you solid food because you weren't ready for it. Even now you aren't ready for it
3:3 because you're still influenced by your corrupt nature. When you are jealous and quarrel among yourselves, aren't you influenced by your corrupt nature and living by human standards?
3:4 When some of you say, "I follow Paul" and others say, "I follow Apollos," aren't you acting like [sinful] humans?
3:5 Who is Apollos? Who is Paul? They are servants who helped you come to faith. Each did what the Lord gave him to do.
3:6 I planted, and Apollos watered, but God made it grow.
3:7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is important because [only] God makes it grow.
3:8 The one who plants and the one who waters have the same goal, and each will receive a reward for his own work.
3:9 We are God's coworkers. You are God's field. You are God's building.
3:10 As a skilled and experienced builder, I used the gift that God gave me to lay the foundation [for that building]. However, someone else is building on it. Each person must be careful how he builds on it.
3:11 After all, no one can lay any other foundation than the one that is already laid, and that foundation is Jesus Christ.
3:12 People may build on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw.
3:13 The day will make what each one does clearly visible because fire will reveal it. That fire will determine what kind of work each person has done.
3:14 If what a person has built survives, he will receive a reward.
3:15 If his work is burned up, he will suffer [the loss]. However, he will be saved, though it will be like going through a fire.
3:16 Don't you know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?
3:17 If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him because God's temple is holy. You are that holy temple!
3:18 Don't deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise in the ways of this world, you should give up that wisdom in order to become really wise.
3:19 The wisdom of this world is nonsense in God's sight. That's why Scripture says, "God catches the wise in their cleverness."
3:20 Again Scripture says, "The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are pointless."
3:21 So don't brag about people. Everything belongs to you.
3:22 Whether it is Paul, Apollos, Cephas, the world, life or death, present or future things, everything belongs to you.
3:23 You belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.
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