3. My apologetic to the ones cross-examining me is this:
4. Do I not have the privilege of eating and drinking?
5. Is the privilege not mine to take an achot b'Moshiach as isha in my travels for Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach's avodas kodesh, just as the rest of his Shlichim do and the Achim [see p.848] of Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach Adoneinu and Kefa?
6. Or is it only Bar-Nabba and I who are denied the privilege of not working at a parnasah?
7. Whoever heard of someone serving as a chaiyal (soldier) but having to pay his own wages for doing so? Who plants a kerem (vineyard) but does not eat the p'ri hakerem? And who serves as a ro'eh (shepherd) over a flock and of the cholov (milk) of the flock does not partake? [Devarim 20:6; Mishle 27:18]
8. Do I say this according to the dvar haBnei Adam? Or does not the Torah say these things?
9. For, in the Torah of Moshe [Rabbenu] it has been written, LO TACHSOM SHOR BEDISHO ("You shall not muzzle an ox treading grain" DEVARIM 25:4). Surely it is not for oxen that Hashem is concerned.
10. Or does he not speak altogether for our sake, and is it not for us that Hashem says this? Ken, for us, because it was written that the one plowing ought to plow on in tikvah, and the one threshing ought to partake with tikvah.
11. If we sowed spiritual things to you, is it too much if we reap in material things from you? [Ro 15:27]
12. If others over you can claim this privilege, can we not even more? But we did not make use of this privilege; we endure all things, lest any hindrance we should give to Moshiach's Besuras HaGeulah.
13. Do you not have da'as that the kohanim serving in the Beis Hamikdash sherut (service in the Temple) eat the things of the Beis Hamikdash; the kohanim attending the Mizbe'ach (altar) have their share with the Mizbe'ach (altar)?
14. So also Moshiach Adoneinu appointed the ones proclaiming the Besuras HaGeulah to get their parnasah from the Besuras HaGeulah.
15. But I have not used any of these privileges; I did not write these things that it might be so with me; for it's better for me rather to die than that someone deprive me of my kavod [in Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach Pp 1:21].