1. Now, brothers, I want you to understand about spiritual gifts.
2. You remember the lives you lived before you were believers. You let yourselves be influenced and led away to worship idols—things that have no life.
3. So I tell you that no one who is speaking with the help of God’s Spirit says, “Jesus be cursed.” And no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” without the help of the Holy Spirit.
4. There are different kinds of gifts; but they are all from the same Spirit.
5. There are different ways to serve; but all these ways are from the same Lord.
6. And there are different ways that God works in people; but all these ways are from the same God. God works in us all in everything we do.
7. Something from the Spirit can be seen in each person, to help everyone.
8. The Spirit gives one person the ability to speak with wisdom. And the same Spirit gives another the ability to speak with knowledge.
9. The same Spirit gives faith to one person. And that one Spirit gives another gifts of healing.
10. The Spirit gives to another person the power to do miracles, to another the ability to prophesy. And he gives to another the ability to know the difference between good and evil spirits. The Spirit gives one person the ability to speak in different kinds of languages and to another the ability to interpret those languages.
11. One Spirit, the same Spirit, does all these things. The Spirit decides what to give each person.
12. A person’s body is one thing, but it has many parts. Yes, there are many parts to a body, but all those parts make only one body. Christ is like that too.
13. Some of us are Jews, and some of us are Greeks. Some of us are slaves, and some of us are free. But we were all baptized into one body through one Spirit. And we were all made to share in the one Spirit.
14. And a person’s body has more than one part. It has many parts.
15. The foot might say, “I am not a hand. So I am not part of the body.” But saying this would not stop the foot from being a part of the body.
16. The ear might say, “I am not an eye. So I am not part of the body.” But saying this would not make the ear stop being a part of the body.
17. If the whole body were an eye, the body would not be able to hear. If the whole body were an ear, the body would not be able to smell anything.