Down with lawsuits!

1How can anyone of you who has a dispute with another dare to have it judged before the unrighteous, and not before the saints?

2Do you not know that the saints are to be judging the world? ⁶⁸So if the world is to be judged by you, are you not competent to judge the smallest matters?

3Do you not know that we will judge angels? ⁶⁹How much more the things of this life! ⁷⁰

4Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, appoint those who are least esteemed in the congregation to judge! ⁷¹

5I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is not a single wise man among you who would be competent to judge between a man and his brother?

6Instead, brother goes to law against brother, and this before unbelievers!

7Actually, the very fact that you have lawsuits among you already represents a defeat for you. ⁷²Why do you not rather accept wrong? Why not rather accept being cheated?

8No, you yourselves do the wronging and cheating, and to brothers!

How to avoid inheriting the Kingdom

9Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, ⁷³nor catamites, ⁷⁴nor sodomites,

10nor the greedy, nor thieves, nor drunkards, nor the abusive, nor swindlers can inherit the Kingdom of God, absolutely.

11And that is what some of you were; ⁷⁵but you were bathed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. ⁷⁶

Fornication is bad!

12All things are ‘permissible’ for me, but not all things are expedient. All things are ‘permissible’ for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.

13Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods, but God will destroy both it and them. ⁷⁷Now the body is not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. ⁷⁸

14Further, God both raised up the Lord and will also raise up us by His power.

15Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Not ever!

16Can you not know that the one who joins himself with a prostitute is one body with her? For “the two,” He says, “will become one flesh.” ⁷⁹

17But he who is joined with the Lord is one spirit with Him.

18Flee from fornication! Every sin that a man may commit is outside the body, but he who fornicates sins against his own body. ⁸⁰

19Do you not know that your ⁸¹bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?

20Because you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. ⁸²