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 to others I am not an apostle, yet indeed I am to you, for you are my seal of apostleship in the Lord.
3. My defense to those who examine me is this:
4. Do we not have the right to eat and drink?
5. Do we not have the right to take along a sister as wife, like the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?
6. Or do only I and Barnabas not have the right to refrain from working?
7. Who ever serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat the fruit of it? Who shepherds a flock and does not drink from the milk of the flock?
8. I am not saying these things according to a human perspective. Or does the law not also say these things?
9. For in the law of Moses it is written, “You must not muzzle an ox while it is threshing.” It is not about oxen God is concerned, is it?
10. Or doubtless does he speak for our sake? For it is written for our sake, because the one who plows ought to plow in hope and the one who threshes ought to do so in hope of a share.
11. If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too great a thing if we reap material things from you?