1Am I not free? am I not an apostle? have I not seen Yeshua our Lord? are you not 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 lead about a wife who is a believer, even as the rest of the apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas? 6Or I only and Barnabas, have we not a right to refrain from working? 7What soldier ever serves at his own expense? who plants a vineyard, and does not eat its fruit? or who feeds a flock, and does not eat of the milk of the flock? 8Do I speak these things according to the manner of men? or does not the Torah also say the same? 9For it is written in the Torah of Moses, You shall not muzzle the ox when he treads out the grain. Is it for the oxen that God cares, 10or does he say it assuredly for our sake? Yes, for our sake it was written: because he who plows ought to plow in hope, and he who threshes, to thresh in hope of partaking. 11If we sowed to you spiritual things, is it a great matter if we shall reap your carnal things? 12If others partake of this right over you, do we not yet more? Nevertheless we did not use this right; but we bear all things, that we may cause no hindrance to the gospel of Messiah. 13Do you not know that those who minister about sacred things eat of the things of the temple, and those who wait upon the altar have their portion with the altar? 14Even so the Lord ordained that those who proclaim the gospel should live from the gospel. 15But I have used none of these things: and I do not write these things that it may be so done in my case; for it would be good for me rather to die, than that any man should make my glorying void. 16For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of; for necessity is laid upon me; for woe is to me, if I do not preach the gospel. 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 gospel, I may make the gospel without charge, so as not to use to the full my right in the gospel. 19For though I was free from all men, I brought myself under bondage to all, that I might gain the more. 20And to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain Jews; to those who are under Torah, as under Torah, not being myself under Torah, that I might gain those who are under Torah; 21to those who are without the Torah, as without the Torah, not being without the Torah of God, but within the Torah of Messiah, that I might gain those who are without the Torah. 22To the weak I became weak, that I might gain the weak: I have become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some. 23And I do all things for the gospel’s sake, that I may be a joint partaker of it. 24Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Even so run; that you may attain. 25And every 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 so run, as not uncertainly; so I fight, as not beating the air: 27but I discipline my body, and bring it into bondage: lest by any means, after I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected.