16. How can you be sure, Christian wife, that you will not save your husband? Or how can you be sure, Christian husband, that you will not save your wife?
17. Each of you should go on living according to the Lord's gift to you, and as you were when God called you. This is the rule I teach in all the churches.
18. If a circumcised man has accepted God's call, he should not try to remove the marks of circumcision; if an uncircumcised man has accepted God's call, he should not get circumcised.
19. For whether or not a man is circumcised means nothing; what matters is to obey God's commandments.
20. Each of you should remain as you were when you accepted God's call.
21. Were you a slave when God called you? Well, never mind; but if you have a chance to become free, use it.
22. For a slave who has been called by the Lord is free for the Lord; in the same way a free person who has been called by Christ is his slave.
23. God bought you for a price; so do not become slaves of human beings.
24. My friends, each of you should remain in fellowship with God in the same condition as you were when you were called.
25. Now, concerning what you wrote about unmarried people: I do not have a command from the Lord, but I give my opinion as one who by the Lord's mercy is worthy of trust.
26. Considering the present distress, I think it is better for a man to stay as he is.
27. Have you got a wife? Then don't try to get rid of her. Are you unmarried? Then don't look for a wife.
28. But if you do marry, you haven't committed a sin; and if an unmarried woman marries, she hasn't committed a sin. But I would rather spare you the everyday troubles that married people will have.
29. What I mean, my friends, is this: there is not much time left, and from now on married men should live as though they were not married;
30. those who weep, as though they were not sad; those who laugh, as though they were not happy; those who buy, as though they did not own what they bought;
31. those who deal in material goods, as though they were not fully occupied with them. For this world, as it is now, will not last much longer.
32. I would like you to be free from worry. An unmarried man concerns himself with the Lord's work, because he is trying to please the Lord.
33. But a married man concerns himself with worldly matters, because he wants to please his wife;
34. and so he is pulled in two directions. An unmarried woman or a virgin concerns herself with the Lord's work, because she wants to be dedicated both in body and spirit; but a married woman concerns herself with worldly matters, because she wants to please her husband.
35. I am saying this because I want to help you. I am not trying to put restrictions on you. Instead, I want you to do what is right and proper, and to give yourselves completely to the Lord's service without any reservation.