22. The Jews demand miracles and signs, the Greeks ask first and last for wisdom,
23. but it is the crucified Christ that we preach, and that appears a fool's message to the Greeks, and a scandal to the Jews.
24. Think of it! God's power, God's wisdom, the Christ, takes on that semblance in the sight of men.
25. But there is more wisdom in God's foolishness than in men's cleverness, more strength in God's weakness than in human power.
26. Not many wise, powerful, highly placed are found in our number.
27. Why? Because this calling of God is not on the lines of anything which the world sets up as important.
28. God would not have anything of the flesh to plume itself on a value of its own. Thus it was that He chose that which was weak, despised, unsupported by birth and tradition, that which in the eyes of the world had no existence at all.
29. This He chose and by its means He dismantles all the world's glory, leaving us faith alone.
30. For in Christ Jesus your being comes from him, not from the world, and he is your wisdom, your righteousness, your cleansing and your redemption coming to you from God alone, from Him apart from all else,