1. Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord?
2. If I am not an apostle to others, at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.
3. My defense to those who examine me is this:
4. Don’t we have the right to eat and drink?
5. Don’t we have the right to be accompanied by a Christian wife like the other apostles, the Lord’s brothers, and Cephas?
6. Or do Barnabas and I alone have no right to refrain from working?
7. Who ever goes to war at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its fruit? Or who shepherds a flock and does not drink the milk from the flock?
8. Am I saying this from a human perspective? Doesn’t the law also say the same thing?
9. For it is written in the law of Moses, Do not muzzle an ox while it treads out grain. Is God really concerned with oxen?