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For to those who are perishing the message of the cross is foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is God's power.
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For it is written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will set aside the understanding of the experts.
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Where is the philosopher? Where is the scholar? Where is the debater of this age? Hasn't God made the world's wisdom foolish?
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For since, in God's wisdom, the world did not know God through wisdom, God was pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of the message preached.
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For the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks seek wisdom,
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but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles.
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Yet to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is God's power and God's wisdom,
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because God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.
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Brothers, consider your calling: not many are wise from a human perspective, not many powerful, not many of noble birth.
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Instead, God has chosen the world's foolish things to shame the wise, and God has chosen the world's weak things to shame the strong.
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God has chosen the world's insignificant and despised things-- the things viewed as nothing-- so He might bring to nothing the things that are viewed as something,
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so that no one can boast in His presence.
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But from Him you are in Christ Jesus, who for us became wisdom from God, as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption,
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in order that, as it is written: The one who boasts must boast in the Lord.