For if I preach the gospel, it is no glory to me, for a necessity lieth upon me: for woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel.17 For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward: but if against my will, a dispensation is committed to me:18 What is my reward then? That preaching the gospel, I may deliver the gospel without charge, that I abuse not my power in the gospel.19 For whereas I was free as to all, I made myself the servant of all, that I might gain the more.22 To the weak I became weak, that I might gain the weak. I became all things to all men, that I might save all.23 And I do all things for the gospel’s sake: that I may be made partaker thereof.†24 Know you not that they that run in the race, all run indeed, but one receiveth the prize? So run that you may obtain.25 And every one that striveth for the mastery, refraineth himself from all things: and they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible one.26 I therefore so run, not as at an uncertainty: I so fight, not as one beating the air:27 But I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection: lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway.†
On this account also Paul the Apostle says to the Corinthians, "Know ye not, that they who run in a racecourse, do all indeed run, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. Every one also who engages in the contest is temperate in all things: now these men do it that they may obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. But I so run, not as uncertainty; I fight, not as one beating the air; but I make my body livid, and bring it into subjection, lest by any means, when preaching to others, I may myself be rendered a castaway." This able wrestler, therefore, exhorts us to the struggle for immortality, that we may be crowned, and may deem the crown precious, namely, that which is acquired by our struggle, but which does not encircle us of its own accord. And the harder we strive, so much is it the more valuable; while so much the more valuable it is, so much the more should we esteem it. And indeed those things are not esteemed so highly which come spontaneously, as those which are reached by much anxious care.
My soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God.4 For the sparrow hath found herself a house, and the turtle a nest for herself where she may lay her young ones: Thy altars, O Lord of hosts, my king and my God.5 Blessed are they that dwell in thy house, O Lord: they shall praise thee for ever and ever.6 Blessed is the man whose help is from thee: in his heart he hath disposed to ascend by steps,12 For God loveth mercy and truth: the Lord will give grace and glory.
The Old Testament proclaimed the Father openly and the Son more obscurely. The New [Testament] manifested the Son and suggested the deity of the Spirit. Now the Spirit dwells among us and supplies us with a clearer demonstration of himself. For it was not safe, when the Godhead of the Father was not yet acknowledged, plainly to proclaim the Son; nor when that of the Son was not yet received to burden us further (if I may use so bold an expression) with the Holy Spirit; lest perhaps people might, like persons loaded with food beyond their strength and presenting eyes as yet too weak to look at the sun's light, risk the loss even of that which was within the reach of their powers; but that by gradual additions, and, as David says, "Goings up, and advances and progress from glory to glory," the light of the Trinity might shine on the more illuminated. It was for this reason, I think, that [the Holy Spirit] gradually came to dwell in the disciples, measuring himself out to them according to their capacity to receive him, at the beginning of the Gospel, after the passion, after the ascension, making perfect their powers, being breathed on them and appearing in fiery tongues.
And he spoke also to them a similitude: Can the blind lead the blind? do they not both fall into the ditch?40 The disciple is not above his master: but every one shall be perfect, if he be as his master.41 And why seest thou the mote in thy brother’s eye: but the beam that is in thy own eye thou considerest not?†42 Or how canst thou say to thy brother: Brother, let me pull the mote out of thy eye, when thou thyself seest not the beam in thy own eye? Hypocrite, cast first the beam out of thy own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to take out the mote from thy brother’s eye.
(Hom. 9, in Hexameron.) In truth, self knowledge seems the most important of all. For not only the eye, looking at outward things, fails to exercise its sight upon itself, but our understanding also, though very quick in apprehending the sin of another, is slow to perceive its own defects.
About CSB. A personal translation of the New Testament, rendered directly from the public-domain Greek in a literary style — not a scholarly critical edition, and not for liturgical or doctrinal authority. It is one reader's work, offered for enjoyment; where it matters, weigh it against an established translation. (Placeholder text — final wording to come.)