MODERN LITERAL VERSION

9:1 Am I not an apostle? Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? Are you* not my work in the Lord?
9:2 If I am not an apostle to others, but yet I am to you*; for* you* are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

9:3 My defense to those who are examining me is this:
9:4 have we no authority to eat and to drink?
9:5 Have we no authority to lead around a wife, (a sister in the Lord), even as the rest of the apostles and the brethren of the Lord and Cephas?
9:6 Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no authority not to work?
9:7 Does anyone ever make war while supplying his own rations? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat from its fruit? Or who shepherds a flock and does not drink from the milk of the flock?
9:8 I am not speaking these things according to human standards. Or is the law not also saying these things?
9:9 For* it has been written in the Law of Moses, ‘You will not muzzle a threshing bull.' {Deut. 25:4} There is not care only for the bulls with God, is there?
9:10 Or does he certainly say it because of us? For* it was written because of us, that the one who is plowing ought to plow in hope and the one who is threshing ought to thresh in hope to partake of his hope.

9:11 If we sowed spiritual things to you*, is it a great thing if we will reap your* fleshly things?
9:12 If others are partaking of this authority over you*, do we not yet more? But we did not use this authority, but we are forbearing all things, that* we should give no hindrance to the good-news of Christ.
9:13 Do you* not know that those who work at the sacred things, eat from the things of the temple and those who wait-upon the altar have their part with the altar?
9:14 So, the Lord also commanded that those who are proclaiming the good-news, to live out of the good-news.
9:15 But I used none of these things and I do not write these things that* it may become so with me; for* it would be good for me rather to die, than that* anyone should make my boasting void.
9:16 For* if I proclaim the good-news, it is not boasting to me; for* necessity is laid upon me, but woe is to me, if I do not proclaim the good-news.
9:17 For* if I am doing this voluntarily, I have a reward, but if I do so involuntarily, I have a stewardship entrusted to me.
9:18 Then* what is my reward? That*, when I proclaim the good-news of the Christ, I may place the good-news before you * without cost, *that* I may not make full use of my authority in the good-news.

9:19 For* although {F} I was free from all , I enslaved myself to all, in order that I might gain all the more.
9:20 And I became like a Jew to the Jews, in order that I might gain Jews. I became like those under the law to those who are under the law, in order that I might gain those who are under the law.
9:21 I became to those who are lawless, like the lawless, (not being lawless to God, but lawful to Christ), in order that I might gain those who are lawless.
9:22 I have become like the weak to those who are weak, in order that I might gain the weak. I have become all things to all men, in order that I may certainly save some.
9:23 But I am doing this because of the good-news, in order that I might become a fellow partner of it.

9:24 Do you* not know that those who run in the stadium, all indeed run, but only one receives the prize? So run that* you* may grab it.
9:25 But everyone who struggles in the race exercises self-control in all things. Therefore indeed, they do it in order that they may receive a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible crown.
9:26 Now-then, I run as so, not with uncertainty. I am combating as so, not just whipping the air;
9:27 but I am buffeting my body and enslaving it; lest somehow after having preached to others, I myself might become unapproved.
{Footnotes: 1Co 9:19 I was a free man from all , I was a bondservant to all.}