Common English Bible CEB
Revised Standard Version RSV
1 When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I didn't come preaching God's secrets to you like I was an expert in speech or wisdom.
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When I came to you, brethren, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom.
2 I had made up my mind not to think about anything while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and to preach him as crucified.
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For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
3 I stood in front of you with weakness, fear, and a lot of shaking.
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And I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling;
4 My message and my preaching weren't presented with convincing wise words but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power.
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and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
5 I did this so that your faith might not depend on the wisdom of people but on the power of God.
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that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
6 What we say is wisdom to people who are mature. It isn't a wisdom that comes from the present day or from today's leaders who are being reduced to nothing.
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Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away.
7 We talk about God's wisdom, which has been hidden as a secret. God determined this wisdom in advance, before time began, for our glory.
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But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification.
8 It is a wisdom that none of the present-day rulers have understood, because if they did understand it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory!
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None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
9 But this is precisely what is written: God has prepared things for those who love him that no eye has seen, or ear has heard, or that haven't crossed the mind of any human being.
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But, as it is written, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him,"
10 God has revealed these things to us through the Spirit. The Spirit searches everything, including the depths of God.
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God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
11 Who knows a person's depths except their own spirit that lives in them? In the same way, no one has known the depths of God except God's Spirit.
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For what person knows a man's thoughts except the spirit of the man which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
12 We haven't received the world's spirit but God's Spirit so that we can know the things given to us by God.
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Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.
13 These are the things we are talking about—not with words taught by human wisdom but with words taught by the Spirit—we are interpreting spiritual things to spiritual people.
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And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who possess the Spirit.
14 But people who are unspiritual don't accept the things from God's Spirit. They are foolishness to them and can't be understood, because they can only be comprehended in a spiritual way.
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The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
15 Spiritual people comprehend everything, but they themselves aren't understood by anyone.
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The spiritual man judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.
16 Who has known the mind of the Lord, who will advise him? But we have the mind of Christ.
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"For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.
Copyright © 2011 Common English Bible
Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.