3. This is my defense against those who criticize me.
4. Don’t we have the right to eat and drink?
5. Don’t we have the right to travel with a wife who believes like the rest of the apostles, the Lord’s brothers, and Cephas?
6. Or is it only I and Barnabas who don’t have the right to not work for our living?
7. Who joins the army and pays their own way? Who plants a vineyard and doesn’t eat its fruit? Who shepherds a flock and doesn’t drink its milk?
8. I’m not saying these things just based on common sense, am I? Doesn’t the Law itself say these things?
9. In Moses’ Law it’s written: You will not muzzle the ox when it is threshing. Is God worried about oxen,
10. or did he say this entirely for our sake? It was written for our sake because the one who plows and the one who threshes should each do so with the hope of sharing the produce.
11. If we sowed spiritual things in you, is it so much to ask to harvest some material things from you?
12. If others have these rights over you, don’t we deserve them all the more? However, we haven’t made use of this right, but we put up with everything so we don’t put any obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.
13. Don’t you know that those who serve in the temple get to eat food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share part of what is sacrificed on the altar?
14. In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who preach the gospel should get their living from the gospel.
15. But I haven’t taken advantage of this. And I’m not writing this so that it will be done for me. It’s better for me to die than to lose my right to brag about this!
16. If I preach the gospel, I have no reason to brag, since I’m obligated to do it. I’m in trouble if I don’t preach the gospel.