1 When I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God.

2 For I resolved to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

3 I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling,

4 and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,

5 so that your faith might not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.

6 Yet we do speak a wisdom among the mature, a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away.

7 But we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and which God destined for our glory before the ages.

8 None of the rulers of this age understood it; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

9 But, as it is written, »No eye has seen, nor ear heard,nor the heart of man conceivedwhat God has prepared for those who love him,«

10 God has revealed them to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.

11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit which is in him? Even so no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand the things freely given to us by God.

13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.

14 But the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

15 But the spiritual man judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one.

16 »For who has known the mind of the Lordthat he may instruct him?« But we have the mind of Christ.