Even now we go hungry and thirsty, and we don’t have enough clothes to keep warm. We are often beaten and have no home.
Parallel translations
- WEB Even to this present hour we hunger, thirst, are naked, are beaten, and have no certain dwelling place.
- KJV Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwellingplace;
- BSB To this very hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed, we are brutally treated, we are homeless.
- NKJV To the present hour we both hunger and thirst, and we are poorly clothed, and beaten, and homeless.
- NASB Up to this present hour we are both hungry and thirsty, and are poorly clothed and roughly treated and homeless;
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Paul lists the hardships of apostolic life—hunger, thirst, poor clothing, beatings, homelessness. It matters because faithful ministry embraced real suffering, unlike the Corinthians' comfort.
Overview
In a catalog of afflictions, Paul shows that being an apostle meant ongoing physical deprivation and abuse 'to this present hour.' Far from the kingly ease the Corinthians imagined for themselves, the messengers of Christ shared in His sufferings. This sober list rebukes spiritual complacency and dignifies hardship endured for the gospel.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Rom 8:35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Could oppression, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
- Phil 4:12I know how to be humbled, and I know also how to abound. In everything and in all things I have learned the secret both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in need.
- 2 Cor 11:23–27Are they servants of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself) I am more so; in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in deaths often.
- Matt 8:20Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
- 2 Tim 3:11persecutions, and sufferings: those things that happened to me at Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. I endured those persecutions. The Lord delivered me out of them all.
- Job 22:6For you have taken pledges from your brother for nothing, and stripped the naked of their clothing.
- 2 Cor 6:4–5but in everything commending ourselves, as servants of God, in great endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in distresses,
- 2 Cor 4:8We are pressed on every side, yet not crushed; perplexed, yet not to despair;
- Acts 14:19But some Jews from Antioch and Iconium came there, and having persuaded the multitudes, they stoned Paul, and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead.
- Acts 23:2The high priest, Ananias, commanded those who stood by him to strike him on the mouth.
- Acts 16:23When they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, charging the jailer to keep them safely,
- 1 Cor 9:4Have we no right to eat and to drink?
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Christ crucified is the wisdom and power of God; he is our Passover sacrificed for us, the firstfruits of resurrection, the foundation on which everything is built.
How 1 Corinthians 4:11 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.