New Living Translation NLT
English Standard Version ESV
1 When 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.
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And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.
2 For I decided that while I was with you I would forget everything except Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified.
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For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
3 I came to you in weakness—timid and trembling.
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And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling,
4 And 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.
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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 you would trust not in human wisdom but in the power of God.
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so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
6 Yet 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.
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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 No, 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.
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But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.
8 But the rulers of this world have not understood it; if they had, they would not have crucified our glorious Lord.
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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 That 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.”
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But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—
10 But 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.
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these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
11 No 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.
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For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
12 And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.
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Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.
13 When 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.
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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 are spiritual.
14 But 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.
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The natural person does not accept the things 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 Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others.
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The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.
16 For, “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.
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“For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? ” But we have the mind of Christ.
Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by
Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®) © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved. ESV Text Edition: 2025