¹ Take me as your pattern, just as I take Christ for mine.

² I congratulate you for remembering me so consistently and for maintaining the traditions exactly as I passed them on to you.

³ But I should like you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.

⁴ For any man to pray or to prophesy with his head covered shows disrespect for his head.

⁵ And for a woman to pray or prophesy with her head uncovered shows disrespect for her head; it is exactly the same as if she had her hair shaved off.

⁶ Indeed, if a woman does go without a veil, she should have her hair cut off too; but if it is a shameful thing for a woman to have her hair cut off or shaved off, then she should wear a veil.

⁷ But for a man it is not right to have his head covered, since he is the image of God and reflects God's glory; but woman is the reflection of man's glory.

⁸ For man did not come from woman; no, woman came from man;

⁹ nor was man created for the sake of woman, but woman for the sake of man:

¹⁰ and this is why it is right for a woman to wear on her head a sign of the authority over her, because of the angels.

¹¹ However, in the Lord, though woman is nothing without man, man is nothing without woman;

¹² and though woman came from man, so does every man come from a woman, and everything comes from God.

¹³ Decide for yourselves: does it seem fitting that a woman should pray to God without a veil?

¹⁴ Does not nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him,

¹⁵ but when a woman has long hair, it is her glory? After all, her hair was given to her to be a covering.

¹⁶ If anyone wants to be contentious, I say that we have no such custom, nor do any of the churches of God.

¹⁷ Now that I am on the subject of instructions, I cannot congratulate you on the meetings you hold; they do more harm than good.

¹⁸ In the first place, I hear that when you all come together in your assembly, there are separate factions among you, and to some extent I believe it.

¹⁹ It is no bad thing, either, that there should be differing groups among you so that those who are to be trusted among you can be clearly recognised.

²⁰ So, when you meet together, it is not the Lord's Supper that you eat;

²¹ for when the eating begins, each one of you has his own supper first, and there is one going hungry while another is getting drunk.

²² Surely you have homes for doing your eating and drinking in? Or have you such disregard for God's assembly that you can put to shame those who have nothing? What am I to say to you? Congratulate you? On this I cannot congratulate you.

²³ For the tradition I received from the Lord and also handed on to you is that on the night he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread,

²⁴ and after he had given thanks, he broke it, and he said, 'This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.'

²⁵ And in the same way, with the cup after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Whenever you drink it, do this as a memorial of me.'

²⁶ Whenever you eat this bread, then, and drink this cup, you are proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes.

²⁷ Therefore anyone who eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily is answerable for the body and blood of the Lord.

²⁸ Everyone is to examine himself and only then eat of the bread or drink from the cup;

²⁹ because a person who eats and drinks without recognising the body is eating and drinking his own condemnation.

³⁰ That is why many of you are weak and ill and a good number have died.

³¹ If we were critical of ourselves we would not be condemned,

³² but when we are judged by the Lord, we are corrected by the Lord to save us from being condemned along with the world.

³³ So then, my brothers, when you meet for the Meal, wait for each other;

³⁴ anyone who is hungry should eat at home. Then your meeting will not bring your condemnation. The other matters I shall arrange when I come.