1. Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Haven’t I seen Jesus our Lord? Aren’t you my work in the Lord?
2. If I’m not an apostle to others, at least I am to you! You are the seal that shows I’m an apostle.
3. This is my defense against those who criticize me.
4. Don’t we have the right to eat and drink?
5. Don’t we have the right to travel with a wife who believes like the rest of the apostles, the Lord’s brothers, and Cephas?
6. Or is it only I and Barnabas who don’t have the right to not work for our living?
7. Who joins the army and pays their own way? Who plants a vineyard and doesn’t eat its fruit? Who shepherds a flock and doesn’t drink its milk?
8. I’m not saying these things just based on common sense, am I? Doesn’t the Law itself say these things?
9. In Moses’ Law it’s written: You will not muzzle the ox when it is threshing. Is God worried about oxen,