1 Corinthians 1:18-29 For the Message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are on the way to perdition, but it is the power of God to those whom He is saving.

WNT⁽ⁱ⁾ ¹⁸ For the Message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are on the way to perdition, but it is the power of God to those whom He is saving. ¹⁹ For so it stands written, "I WILL EXHIBIT THE NOTHINGNESS OF THE WISDOM OF THE WISE, AND THE INTELLIGENCE OF THE INTELLIGENT I WILL BRING TO NOUGHT." ²⁰ Where is your wise man? Where your expounder of the Law? Where your investigator of the questions of this present age? Has not God shown the world's wisdom to be utter foolishness? ²¹ For after the world by its wisdom--as God in His wisdom had ordained--had failed to gain the knowledge of God, God was pleased, by the apparent foolishness of the Message which we preach, to save those who accepted it. ²² Seeing that Jews demand miracles, and Greeks go in search of wisdom, ²³ while we proclaim a Christ who has been crucified--to the Jews a stumbling-block, to Gentiles foolishness, ²⁴ but to those who have received the Call, whether Jews or Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ Because that which the world deems foolish in God is wiser than men's wisdom, and that which it deems feeble in God is mightier than men's might. ²⁶ For consider, brethren, God's call to you. Not many who are wise with merely human wisdom, not many of position and influence, not many of noble birth have been called. ²⁷ But God has chosen the things which the world regards as foolish, in order to put its wise men to shame; and God has chosen the things which the world regards as destitute of influence, in order to put its powerful things to shame; ²⁸ and the things which the world regards as base, and those which it sets utterly at nought--things that have no existence--God has chosen in order to reduce to nothing things that do exist; ²⁹ to prevent any mortal man from boasting in the presence of God.