1
Am I not an apostle? Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord?
2
If I am not an apostle to others, yet doubtless I am to you. For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.
3
My defense to those who examine me is this:
4
Do we have no right to eat and drink?
5
Do we have no right to take along a believing wife, as do also the other apostles, the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?
6
Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working?
7
Who ever goes to war at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Or who tends a flock and does not drink of the milk of the flock?
8
Do I say these things as a mere man? Or does not the law say the same also?
9
For it is written in the law of Moses, "You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain." Is it oxen God is concerned about?