12. Let me put it this way: each one of you says something different. One says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Peter”; and another, “I follow Christ”.
13. Christ has been divided into groups! Was it Paul who died on the cross for you? Were you baptized as Paul's disciples?
14. I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius.
15. No one can say, then, that you were baptized as my disciples.
16. (Oh yes, I also baptized Stephanas and his family; but I can't remember whether I baptized anyone else.)
17. Christ did not send me to baptize. He sent me to tell the Good News, and to tell it without using the language of human wisdom, in order to make sure that Christ's death on the cross is not robbed of its power.
18. For the message about Christ's death on the cross is nonsense to those who are being lost; but for us who are being saved it is God's power.
19. The scripture says:“I will destroy the wisdom of the wiseand set aside the understanding of the scholars.”
20. So then, where does that leave the wise? or the scholars? or the skilful debaters of this world? God has shown that this world's wisdom is foolishness!
21. For God in his wisdom made it impossible for people to know him by means of their own wisdom. Instead, by means of the so-called “foolish” message we preach, God decided to save those who believe.