1. Am I not an apostle? Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? Are not ye my work in the Lord?
2. If I am not an apostle unto others, yet doubtless I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.
3. My answer to those that examine me is this,
4. Do we not have authority to eat and to drink?
5. Do we not have authority to bring with us a sister, a wife, as also the other apostles and as the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?
6. Do only Barnabas and I not have authority to forbear working?
7. Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? or who feeds a flock and does not eat of the milk of the flock?
8. Do I say this only according to men? or does not the law say the same also?
9. For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treads out the grain. Does God take care for oxen?
10. Or does he say it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that plows should plow in hope, and that he that threshes in hope should be partaker of his hope.