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?