Job 32:10

But this I say by way of concession, not of commandment.

I give a judgment in this: for this is expedient for you who were the first to start a year ago, not only to do, but also to be willing.

Here, moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.

Therefore seeing we have this ministry, even as we obtained mercy, we don’t faint.

For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay no greater burden on you than these necessary things:

Because of this I have sent Timothy to you, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, who will remind you of my ways which are in Christ, even as I teach everywhere in every assembly.

But to the rest I—not the Lord—say, if any brother has an unbelieving wife, and she is content to live with him, let him not leave her.

I thank him who enabled me, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he counted me faithful, appointing me to service;

I also will answer my part, and I also will show my opinion.

“Behold, I will answer you. In this you are not just, for God is greater than man.

Fire devoured their young men. Their virgins had no wedding song.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

it seemed good to me also, having traced the course of all things accurately from the first, to write to you in order, most excellent Theophilus;

For as you in time past were disobedient to God, but now have obtained mercy by their disobedience,

Now concerning the things about which you wrote to me: it is good for a man not to touch a woman.

But I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they remain even as I am.

But to the married I command—not I, but the Lord—that the wife not leave her husband

Now concerning virgins, I have no commandment from the Lord, but I give my judgment as one who has obtained mercy from the Lord to be trustworthy.

But if you marry, you have not sinned. If a virgin marries, she has not sinned. Yet such will have oppression in the flesh, and I want to spare you.

There is also a difference between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman cares about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But she who is married cares about the things of the world—how she may please her husband.

This I say for your own profit; not that I may ensnare you, but for that which is appropriate, and that you may attend to the Lord without distraction.

But she is happier if she stays as she is, in my judgment, and I think that I also have God’s Spirit.

Do I speak these things according to the ways of men? Or doesn’t the law also say the same thing?

If any man thinks himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him recognize the things which I write to you, that they are the commandment of the Lord.

But by the grace of God I am what I am. His grace which was given to me was not futile, but I worked more than all of them; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

For we are not as so many, peddling the word of God. But as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, we speak in Christ.

I speak not by way of commandment, but as proving through the earnestness of others the sincerity also of your love.

That which I speak, I don’t speak according to the Lord, but as in foolishness, in this confidence of boasting.

I have become foolish in boasting. You compelled me, for I ought to have been commended by you, for I am in no way inferior to the very best apostles, though I am nothing.

even as you learned of Epaphras our beloved fellow servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on your behalf,

But even as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News, so we speak: not as pleasing men, but God, who tests our hearts.

Therefore he who rejects this doesn’t reject man, but God, who has also given his Holy Spirit to you.

although I used to be a blasphemer, a persecutor, and insolent. However, I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.

In the past, you were not a people, but now are God’s people, who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.