Part 4

004:010 We, for Christ's sake, are labeled as "foolish"; you, as Christians, are men of shrewd intelligence. We are mere weaklings: you are strong. You are in high repute: we are outcasts.

004:011 To this very moment we endure both hunger and thirst, with scanty clothing and many a blow.

004:012 Homes we have none. Wearily we toil, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we bear it patiently;

004:013 when slandered, we try to conciliate. We have come to be regarded as the mere dirt and filth of the world-- the refuse of the universe, even to this hour.

004:014 I am not writing all this to shame you, but I am offering you advice as my dearly-loved children.

004:015 For even if you were to have ten thousand spiritual instructors-- for all that you could not have several fathers. It is I who in Christ Jesus became your father through the Good News.

004:016 I entreat you therefore to become like me.

004:017 For this reason I have sent Timothy to you. Spiritually he is my dearly-loved and faithful child. He will remind you of my habits as a Christian teacher-- the manner in which I teach everywhere in every Church.

004:018 But some of you have been puffed up through getting the idea that I am not coming to Corinth.

004:019 But, if the Lord is willing, I shall come to you without delay; and then I shall know not the fine speeches of these conceited people, but their power.

004:020 For Apostolic authority is not a thing of words, but of power.

004:021 Which shall it be? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in a loving and tender spirit?

005:001 It is actually reported that there is fornication among you, and of a kind unheard of even among the Gentiles--a man has his father's wife!

005:002 And you, instead of mourning and removing from among you the man who has done this deed of shame, are filled with self-complacency!

005:003 I for my part, present with you in spirit although absent in body, have already, as though I were present, judged him who has so acted.

005:004 In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are all assembled and my spirit is with you, together with the power of our Lord Jesus,

005:005 I have handed over such a man to Satan for the destruction of his body, that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord Jesus.

005:006 It is no good thing--this which you make the ground of your boasting. Do you not know that a little yeast corrupts the whole of the dough?

005:007 Get rid of the old yeast so that you may be dough of a new kind; for in fact you *are* free from corruption. For our Passover Lamb has already been offered in sacrifice--even Christ.

005:008 Therefore let us keep our festival not with old yeast nor with the yeast of what is evil and mischievous, but with bread free from yeast--the bread of transparent sincerity and of truth.

005:009 I wrote to you in that letter that you were not to associate with fornicators;

005:010 not that in this world you are to keep wholly aloof from such as they, any more than from people who are avaricious and greedy of gain, or from worshippers of idols. For that would mean that you would be compelled to go out of the world altogether.

005:011 But what I meant was that you were not to associate with any one bearing the name of "brother," if he was addicted to fornication or avarice or idol-worship or abusive language or hard-drinking or greed of gain. With such a man you ought not even to eat.

005:012 For what business of mine is it to judge outsiders? Is it not for you to judge those who are within the Church

005:013 while you leave to God's judgement those who are outside? Remove the wicked man from among you.

006:001 If one of you has a grievance against an opponent, does he dare to go to law before irreligious men and not before God's people?

006:002 Do you not know that God's people will sit in judgement upon the world? And if you are the court before which the world is to be judged, are you unfit to deal with these petty matters?

006:003 Do you not know that we are to sit in judgement upon angels-- to say nothing of things belonging to this life?