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.
29. I mean, brethren, the appointed time has been winding down and it has grown very short. From now on, let even those who have wives be as if they had none,
30. And those who weep and mourn as though they were not weeping and mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they did not possess anything,
31. And those who deal with this world [overusing the enjoyments of this life] as though they were not absorbed by it and as if they had no dealings with it. For the outward form of this world (the present world order) is passing away.
32. My desire is to have you free from all anxiety and distressing care. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord–how he may please the Lord;