in order to win with certainty.
009:025 But every competitor in an athletic contest practices
abstemiousness in all directions. They indeed do this for
the sake of securing a perishable wreath, but we for the sake
of securing one that will not perish.
009:026 That is how I run, not being in any doubt as to my goal.
I am a boxer who does not inflict blows on the air,
009:027 but I hit hard and straight at my own body and lead it off
into slavery, lest possibly, after I have been a herald to others,
I should myself be rejected.
010:001 For I would have you remember, brethren, how our forefathers
were all of them sheltered by the cloud, and all got safely
through the Red Sea.
010:002 All were baptized in the cloud and in the sea to be
followers of Moses.
010:003 All ate the same spiritual food,
010:004 and all drank the same spiritual drink; for they long drank
the water that flowed from the spiritual rock that went with them--
and that rock was the Christ.
010:005 But with most of them God was not well pleased; for they
were laid low in the Desert.
010:006 And in this they became a warning to us, to teach us not to
be eager, as they were eager, in pursuit of what is evil.
010:007 And you must not be worshippers of idols, as some of them were.
For it is written, "The People sat down to eat and drink,
and stood up to dance."
010:008 Nor may we be fornicators, like some of them who committed
fornication and on a single day 23,000 of them fell dead.
010:009 And do not let us test the Lord too far, as some of them tested
Him and were destroyed by the serpents.