One Body with Many Members
12 qFor just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, rslaves1 or free—and sall were made to drink of one Spirit.
14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, tthere are many parts,2 yet one body.
21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no udivision in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 vIf one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
27 Now wyou are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the jhead, into Christ, 16 kfrom whom the whole body, ljoined and mheld together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
