16. For, wife, how can you be sure of converting and saving your husband? Husband, how can you be sure of converting and saving your wife?
17. Only, let each one [seek to conduct himself and regulate his affairs so as to] lead the life which the Lord has allotted and imparted to him and to which God has invited and summoned him. This is my order in all the churches.
18. Was anyone at the time of his summons [from God] already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the evidence of circumcision. Was anyone at the time [God] called him uncircumcised? Let him not be circumcised.
19. For circumcision is nothing and counts for nothing, neither does uncircumcision, but [what counts is] keeping the commandments of God.
20. Everyone should remain after God calls him in the station or condition of life in which the summons found him.
21. Were you a slave when you were called? Do not let that trouble you. But if you are able to gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity.
22. For he who as a slave was summoned in [to union with] the Lord is a freedman of the Lord, just so he who was free when he was called is a bond servant of Christ (the Messiah).
23. You were bought with a price [purchased with a preciousness and paid for by Christ]; then do not yield yourselves up to become [in your own estimation] slaves to men [but consider yourselves slaves to Christ].
24. So, brethren, in whatever station or state or condition of life each one was when he was called, there let him continue with and close to God.
25. Now concerning the virgins (the marriageable maidens) I have no command of the Lord, but I give my opinion and advice as one who by the Lord's mercy is rendered trustworthy and faithful.
26. I think then, because of the impending distress [that is even now setting in], it is well (expedient, profitable, and wholesome) for a person to remain as he or she is.
27. Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife.
28. But if you do marry, you do not sin [in doing so], and if a virgin marries, she does not sin [in doing so]. Yet those who marry will have physical and earthly troubles, and I would like to spare you that.