1 Corinthians 9:3-18

3My defense to those who examine me is this.

4Don’t we have the right to food and drink?

5Don’t we have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other emissaries and the Lord’s brothers and Kefa?

6Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to not work?

7What soldier ever serves at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its fruit? Or who tends a flock and does not drink its milk?

8I don’t say these things merely as a man, do I? Doesn’t Torah also say these things?

9For it is written in the Torah of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it is threshing.” Is it the oxen that concern God,

10or is He speaking entirely for our sake? Yes, it was written for our sake, because the one plowing ought to plow in hope and the one threshing in hope of a share in the crop.

11If we sowed spiritual things into you, is it too much if we reap material things from you?

12If others have a share in this claim over you, shouldn’t we even more? Nevertheless we did not use this right, but we put up with all things so that we cause no hindrance to the Good News of Messiah.

13Don’t you know that those who perform the holy services eat from the Temple, and those who wait on the altar receive a share at the altar?

14So also the Lord ordered those who proclaim the Good News to get their living from the Good News.

15But I have used none of these things, and I am not writing these things so it will happen this way in my case—for I would rather die than let anyone deprive me of my reason to boast.

16For if I proclaim the Good News, I have no reason to boast—for pressure is put on me and woe to me if I don’t proclaim the Good News!

17For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward. But if not of my own will, I have been entrusted with a commission.

18What then is my reward? That when I preach, I may present the Good News free of charge, not making use of my right in the Good News.