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In such cities as Ephesus, where this letter was written, or Corinth, to which it was addressed, there was a signal difference (far greater than in modern European cities) between the gorgeous splendour of the great public buildings and the meanness and squalor of those streets where the poor and profligate resided. The former were constructed of marble and granite; the capitals of their columns and their roofs were richly decorated with silver and gold; the latter were mean structures, run up with boards for walls, with straw in the interstices and thatch on the top. This is the contrast on which St. Paul siezes,... not, as sometimes the passage is treated, as though the picture presented were that of a dunghill of straw and sticks, with jewels, such as diamonds and emeralds, among the rubbish. He then points out that a day will come when the fire will burn up those wretched edifices of wood and straw, and leave unharmed in their glorious beauty those that were raised of marble and granite and decorated with gold and silver, as the temples of Corinth itself survived the conflagration of Mummius, which burnt the hovels around.

(Dean Howson.)

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KJV: Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;

WEB: But if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or stubble;