11. If a man misapply his own mission, and attempt to lay a foundation other than that already laid which is Christ Jesus, let him be sure he will receive the appropriate reward for such a corruption and reversal of the grace God gave him.
12. Or if, instead of building on this foundation gold and silver and costly marble and stone, he build wood, thatch, straw,
13. he shall certainly receive the appropriate reward of this faithlessness. The fire will burn up his work.
14-15. The great day of truth will dawn, and reveal his faithless evil work, and the havoc he has made of the Church. It will all be destroyed, all pass away, yet shall he himself thereby be saved.
16. For this is God's temple, God's building, the Spirit of God dwells here,
17. and you yourselves are the one building of God, and therefore not one shall perish though the evil doer reap his own destruction.
18. Cleverness and the wisdom of the world are not sufficient for these things. Thereby you may become self-deceived.
19. And if one must become a fool in order to be wise, this is the wisest course, for the world's wisest is a species of folly. “He taketh the wise in their own craftiness” (Job v. 13.).
20. “The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man that they are vanity” (Ps. xciv. 11.).
21. There is nothing in merely human wisdom, and why? because you already have the wisdom that includes all,
22. that includes Paul, Apollos and Cephas, yes, and the world, life, death, the present and the future;
23. it is yours because it and you are Christ's, who is of God, and who therefore includes it all.