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?
10. Or isn’t He really saying it for us? Yes, this is written for us, because he who plows ought to plow in hope, and he who threshes should do so in hope of sharing the crop.
11. If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it too much if we reap material benefits from you?
12. If others have this right to receive benefits from you, don’t we even more?However, we have not made use of this right; instead we endure everything so that we will not hinder the gospel of Christ.
13. Don’t you know that those who perform the temple services eat the food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the offerings of the altar?
14. In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should earn their living by the gospel.