1 Am I not an emissary? Am I not free? Have I not seen 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤔𐤏 ha’Mashiaḥ our Aḏon? Are you not my work in the Aḏon?
2 If to others I am not an emissary, I certainly am to you. For you are the seal of my office of the emissary in the Aḏon.
3 My defence to those who examine me is this:
4 Do we not have a right to eat and drink?
5 Do we not have a right to take along a sister – a wife – as do also the other emissaries, and the brothers of the Aḏon, and Kĕpha?
6 Or do only Barnaḇah and I have no right to refrain from working?
7 Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Or who shepherds a flock and does not feed on the milk of the flock?
8 Do I say this as a man? Or does not the Torah say the same too?
9 For it has been written in the Torah of Mosheh, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.” Is it about oxen Elohim is concerned?
10 Or does He say it because of us all? For this was written because of us, that he who ploughs should plough in expectation, and the thresher in expectation of sharing.
11 If we have sown spiritually among you, is it too much if we reap materially from you?
12 If others share authority over you, should not rather we? But we have not used this authority, but we put up with all, lest we hinder the Good News of Mashiaḥ.
13 Do you not know that those serving the Miqdash eat from the Miqdash, and those attending at the altar have their share of the offerings of the altar?
14 So also the Aḏon instituted that those announcing the Good News should live from the Good News.
15 But I have used none of these, nor have I written this that it should be done so to me. For it would be better for me to die than that anyone should make my boasting empty.
16 For if I bring the Good News, it is no boasting for me, for necessity is laid on me, and it is woe to me if I do not bring the Good News!
17 For if I do this voluntarily I have a reward, but if not voluntarily, I am entrusted with a management.
18 What then is my reward? That in bringing the Good News, I should offer the Good News of Mashiaḥ without cost, so as not to abuse my authority in the Good News.
19 For though I am free from all, I made myself a servant to all, in order to win more,
20 and to the Yahuḏim I became as a Yahuḏi, that I might win Yahuḏim; to those who are under Torah, as under Torah, so as to win those who are under Torah;
21 to those without Torah, as without Torah – not being without Torah toward Elohim, but under Torah of Mashiaḥ – so as to win those who are without Torah.
22 To the weak I became as weak, so as to win the weak. To all I have become all, so as to save some, by all means.
23 And I do this because of the Good News, so as to become a fellow-partaker with it.
24 Do you not know that those who run in a race indeed all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way as to obtain it.
25 And everyone who competes controls himself in every way. Now they do it to receive a corruptible crown, but we for an incorruptible crown.
26 Therefore I run accordingly, not with uncertainty. Thus I fight, not as one who beats the air.
27 But I treat my body severely and make it my slave, lest having proclaimed to others, I myself might be rejected.