1. When one of you has something against someone else in your group, why do you go to the judges in the law courts? The way they think and live is wrong. So why do you let them decide who is right? Why don’t you let God’s holy people decide who is right?
2. Don’t you know that God’s people will judge the world? So if you will judge the world, then surely you can judge small arguments like this.
3. You know that in the future we will judge angels. So surely we can judge life’s ordinary problems.
4. So if you have such matters to be judged, why do you take them to those who are not part of the church? They mean nothing to you.
5. I say this to shame you. Surely there is someone in your group wise enough to judge a complaint between two believers.
6. But now one believer goes to court against another, and you let people who are not believers judge their case!
7. The lawsuits that you have against each other show that you are already defeated. It would be better for you to let someone wrong you. It would be better to let someone cheat you.
8. But you are the ones doing wrong and cheating. And you do this to your own brothers and sisters in Christ!
9-10. Surely you know that people who do wrong will not get to enjoy God’s kingdom. Don’t be fooled. These are the people who will not get to enjoy his kingdom: those who sin sexually, those who worship idols, those who commit adultery, men who let other men use them for sex or who have sex with other men, those who steal, those who are greedy, those who drink too much, those who abuse others with insults, and those who cheat.
11. In the past some of you were like that. But you were washed clean, you were made holy, and you were made right with God in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.