Letters to the Churches

For if a woman is not veiled, let her also have her hair cut short; but if it is shameful for a woman to wear her hair cut short or to have her head shaved, then let her be veiled.

For a man indeed should not have his head veiled, because he is the image and glory of God, and the woman is the glory of man.

For man was not made from woman, but woman from man;

and indeed man was not created for the sake of the woman but woman for the sake of the man.

The reason a woman should show by veiling her head that she is under authority has to do with the angels.

Nevertheless, in union with the Lord neither is woman independent of man nor is man independent of woman;

for as the woman was made from the man, so also the man is now born through the woman. But everything is from God.

Decide for yourselves: is it appropriate for a woman to pray to God when she is unveiled?

Doesn’t the nature of things itself teach you that a man who wears his hair long degrades himself?

But a woman who wears her hair long enhances her appearance, because her hair has been given to her as a covering.

However, if anyone wants to argue about it, the fact remains that we have no such custom, nor do the Messianic communities of God.

But in giving you this next instruction I do not praise you, because when you meet together it does more harm than good!

For, in the first place, I hear that when you gather together as a congregation you divide up into cliques; and to a degree I believe it

(granted that there must be some divisions among you in order to show who are the ones in the right).

Thus, when you gather together, it is not to eat a meal of the Lord;

because as you eat your meal, each one goes ahead on his own; so that one stays hungry while another is already drunk!

Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in? Or are you trying to show your contempt for God’s Messianic community and embarrass those who are poor? What am I supposed to say to you? Am I supposed to praise you? Well, for this I don’t praise you!

For what I received from the Lord is just what I passed on to you — that the Lord Yeshua, on the night he was betrayed, took bread;

and after he had made the b’rakhah he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this as a memorial to me”;

likewise also the cup after the meal, saying, “This cup is the New Covenant effected by my blood; do this, as often as you drink it, as a memorial to me.”

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord, until he comes.

Therefore, whoever eats the Lord’s bread or drinks the Lord’s cup in an unworthy manner will be guilty of desecrating the body and blood of the Lord!

So let a person examine himself first, and then he may eat of the bread and drink from the cup;

for a person who eats and drinks without recognizing the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself.

This is why many among you are weak and sick, and some have died!