4If then ye have disputes about the things of this life, do you seat those on the bench who are least esteemed in the church? 5I speak to you to shame you. Is it so, that there is not among you a wise man? Not so much as one who is able to judge between one brother and another? 6But brother goes to law with brother, and this before the unbelievers. 7Now verily therefore there is altogether a fault among you, because ye have law-suits one with another. Why do ye not rather submit to the wrong? Why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded? 8But ye do wrong and defraud, and that the brethren.
9Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor sodomites, 10nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. 11Yet such were some of you: but ye have been washed, but ye have been sanctified, but ye have been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the spirit of our God.
12All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient; all things are lawful for me, but I will not put myself under the power of any. 13Meats are for the belly, and the belly for meats; but God will destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for whoredom, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will raise us up by his own power.
15Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Taking then the members of Christ, shall I make them members of an harlot? God forbid.
16Do you not know that he that is joined to an harlot is one body with her? For they two, saith he, shall be “one flesh[92].” 17But he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit.
18Flee whoredom. Every other sin which a man may commit is without the body; but he who committeth whoredom sinneth against his own body. 19Do ye not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have from God, and ye are not your own? 20For ye have been bought with a price: glorify then God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
[CHAP. VII.]
NOW with regard to those things concerning which ye have written unto me, it were good for a man not to touch a woman. 2But because of the whoredoms, let every man have his own wife, and every wife her own husband.
3Let the husband render to the wife due benevolence, and in like manner also the wife to the husband. 4The wife hath not power over her own body, but the husband: in like manner also the husband has not power over his own body, but the wife. 5Defraud not one another, except it may be by consent occasionally, that ye may have more leisure for fasting and prayer; and come together again, lest Satan tempt you through your incontinence. 6But in this I speak my opinion only, not authoritatively. 7For I would that all men were even as myself: but every man hath his peculiar gift from God, one of this sort, and another of that. 8I say then to the unmarried and the widows, that it is becoming them if they abide as I am. 9But if they have not the gift of continence, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn. 10But to the married not I command, but the Lord, That the wife be not separated from the husband: 11and even if she should be separated, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the husband put away his wife.
12But to the others I speak, not the Lord, If any brother hath a wife unbelieving, yet she chuseth to dwell with him, let him not put her away. 13And the wife which hath a husband not a believer, and he chuses to dwell with her, let her not put him away. 14For the husband that believeth not is sanctified by the wife, and the wife who believeth not is sanctified by the husband: else indeed your children were unclean, but now are they holy. 15But if the unbelieving person depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in these cases, but God hath called us unto peace.