1 Am I not free? Am I not an ambassador? Have I not seen Yahshua our Prince? Are you not my work in the Prince?2 If to others I am not an ambassador, yet at any rate to you I am; indeed the assurance of my message is you in the Prince.3 My answer to those who examine me is this:4 Do we not have license to eat and to drink?5 Do we not have license to always have with us a kinswoman: a wife, as also the other ambassadors, and the brethren of the Prince, and Kephas?6 Or do only Barnabas and I not have license to work?7 Who at any time serves as a soldier with his own provisions? Who plants a vineyard, and does not eat of its fruit? Or who shepherds a flock, and does not eat of the milk of the flock?8 Do I speak these things according to man, or does the law not also say these things?9 Indeed in the law of Moses it is written, "You will not muzzle a treading ox." Does Yahweh care for the ox?10 Or does He speak on account of us all? For on account of us it was written, that "he who is plowing is obliged to plow in expectation, and he who is threshing, in expectation to partake of it."11 If we have sown things of the spirit in you, is it too great if we should reap your fleshly things?12 If others of authority are partaking of you, still more not we? Rather we have not used this authority, but we cover all ourselves, in order that we should not give any hindrance to the good message of the Anointed.13 Do you not know that those who in sacred things are laboring, from of the temple they eat? Those who are attending at the altar take a share with the altar?14 Also in that manner has the Prince appointed those announcing the good message, from of the good message to live.15 But I have indulged in not one of those things. Now I have not written these things that in this way it would be with me; indeed for me to be slain is still more admirable, than for any one to make void my reason to boast.16 Therefore if I announce the good message, it is not a subject of boasting to me; in necessity it is laid upon me, since woe to me it is if I would not announce the good message!17 For if I do this readily, I have a reward; but if involuntarily I had been entrusted with the management of a family,18 what then is my reward? Announcing the good message, that I would set forth the good message without expense, with respect not to abuse my authority in the good message.19 Therefore being free from all, to all I myself have become a bondman, in order that I would gain of the greater profit.20 And I became to the Judaeans as a Judaean, that I would gain Judaeans; to those subject to law as subject to law, (not being subject to law myself,) that I would gain those subject to law;21 to those without law as without law, (not being without the law of Yahweh, but keeping within the law of Christ,) that I would gain those without law.22 I became weak to the weak, that I would gain the weak. To all I have become all things, in order that of all I will preserve some.23 Moreover, I do all these things on account of the good message, in order that I shall come to have a share of it.24 Do you not know that with those running in a race, while all run, but one takes the prize? In that manner you run, in order that you shall obtain.25 But all who are contending, in all things have self-control; so then those people in order that they would receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.26 Accordingly, in that manner I run not as if secretly, in that manner I spar not as if thrashing air.27 Rather I beat my body, and bring it into subjection, lest perchance I, having proclaimed to others, myself should be found not standing the test.