24. After that comes the end (the completion), when He delivers over the kingdom to God the Father after rendering inoperative and abolishing every [other] rule and every authority and power.
25. For [Christ] must be King and reign until He has put all [His] enemies under His feet. [Ps. 110:1.]
26. The last enemy to be subdued and abolished is death.
27. For He [the Father] has put all things in subjection under His [Christ's] feet. But when it says, All things are put in subjection [under Him], it is evident that He [Himself] is excepted Who does the subjecting of all things to Him. [Ps. 8:6.]
28. However, when everything is subjected to Him, then the Son Himself will also subject Himself to [the Father] Who put all things under Him, so that God may be all in all [be everything to everyone, supreme, the indwelling and controlling factor of life].
29. Otherwise, what do people mean by being [themselves] baptized in behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized for them?
30. [For that matter], why do I live [dangerously as I do, running such risks that I am] in peril every hour?
31. [I assure you] by the pride which I have in you in [your fellowship and union with] Christ Jesus our Lord, that I die daily [I face death every day and die to self].
32. What do I gain if, merely from the human point of view, I fought with [wild] beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised [at all], let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will be dead. [Isa. 22:13.]
33. Do not be so deceived and misled! Evil companionships (communion, associations) corrupt and deprave good manners and morals and character.
34. Awake [from your drunken stupor and return] to sober sense and your right minds, and sin no more. For some of you have not the knowledge of God [you are utterly and willfully and disgracefully ignorant, and continue to be so, lacking the sense of God's presence and all true knowledge of Him]. I say this to your shame.
35. But someone will say, How can the dead be raised? With what [kind of] body will they come forth?
36. You foolish man! Every time you plant seed, you sow something that does not come to life [germinating, springing up, and growing] unless it dies first.
37. Nor is the seed you sow then the body which it is going to have [later], but it is a naked kernel, perhaps of wheat or some of the rest of the grains.
38. But God gives to it the body that He plans and sees fit, and to each kind of seed a body of its own. [Gen. 1:11.]
39. For all flesh is not the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for beasts, another for birds, and another for fish.