1 W hen I came to you, brothers, I didn’t come with excellence of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.

2 F or I determined not to know anything among you, except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

3 I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling.

4 M y speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,

5 t hat your faith wouldn’t stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

6 W e speak wisdom, however, among those who are full grown; yet a wisdom not of this world, nor of the rulers of this world, who are coming to nothing.

7 B ut we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the wisdom that has been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds for our glory,

8 w hich none of the rulers of this world has known. For had they known it, they wouldn’t have crucified the Lord of glory.

9 B ut as it is written, “Things which an eye didn’t see, and an ear didn’t hear, which didn’t enter into the heart of man, these God has prepared for those who love him.”

10 B ut to us, God revealed them through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.

11 F or who among men 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 God’s Spirit.

12 B ut we received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might know the things that were freely given to us by God.

13 W hich things also we speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual things.

14 N ow the natural man doesn’t receive the things of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to him, and he can’t know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

15 B ut he who is spiritual discerns all things, and he himself is judged by no one.

16 “ For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct him?” But we have Christ’s mind.