| New King James Version | New Living Translation |
| 1And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. | 1When I first came to you, dear brothers and sisters, I didn’t use lofty words and impressive wisdom to tell you God’s secret plan. |
| 2For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. | 2For I decided that while I was with you I would forget everything except Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified. |
| 3I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. | 3I came to you in weakness—timid and trembling. |
| 4And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, | 4And my message and my preaching were very plain. Rather than using clever and persuasive speeches, I relied only on the power of the Holy Spirit. |
| 5that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. | 5I did this so you would trust not in human wisdom but in the power of God. |
| 6However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. | 6Yet when I am among mature believers, I do speak with words of wisdom, but not the kind of wisdom that belongs to this world or to the rulers of this world, who are soon forgotten. |
| 7But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, | 7No, the wisdom we speak of is the mystery of God —his plan that was previously hidden, even though he made it for our ultimate glory before the world began. |
| 8which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. | 8But the rulers of this world have not understood it; if they had, they would not have crucified our glorious Lord. |
| 9But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” | 9That is what the Scriptures mean when they say, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.” |
| 10But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. | 10But it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit. For his Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets. |
| 11For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. | 11No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. |
| 12Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. | 12And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us. |
| 13These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. | 13When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths. |
| 14But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. | 14But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means. |
| 15But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. | 15Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others. |
| 16For “who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ. | 16For, “Who can know the LORD’s thoughts? Who knows enough to teach him?” But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ. |
| The Holy Bible, New King James Version, Copyright © 1982 Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved. | Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. |
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