1. Now brothers, I want to clarify for you the gospel I proclaimed to you; you received it and have taken your stand on it.
2. You are also saved by it, if you hold to the message I proclaimed to you — unless you believed for no purpose.
3. For I passed on to you as most important what I also received:that Christ died for our sinsaccording to the Scriptures,
4. that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
5. and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve.
6. Then He appeared to over 500 brothers at one time; most of them are still alive,but some have fallen asleep.
7. Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
8. Last of all, as to one abnormally born, He also appeared to me.
9. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
10. But by God’s grace I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not ineffective. However, I worked more than any of them, yet not I, but God’s grace that was with me.
11. Therefore, whether it is I or they, so we proclaim and so you have believed.
12. Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say, “There is no resurrection of the dead”?
13. But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised;
14. and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is without foundation, and so is your faith.
15. In addition, we are found to be false witnesses about God, because we have testified about God that He raised up Christ — whom He did not raise up if in fact the dead are not raised.
16. For if the dead are not raised, Christ has not been raised.