Concerning Food Sacrificed to Idols
1 Now concerning food sacrificed to idols, we know that "we all have knowledge." Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
2
If anyone thinks he knows anything, he has not yet known as it is necessary to know.
3
But if anyone loves God, this one is known by him.
4
Therefore, concerning the eating of food sacrificed to idols, we know that "an idol [is] nothing in the world" and that "[there is] no God except one."
5
For even if after all [there] are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, just as [there] are many gods and many lords,
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yet to us [there is] one God, the Father, from whom [are] all [things], and we [are] for him, and [there is] one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom [are] all [things], and we [are] through him.
7
But this knowledge [is] not in everyone. But some, being accustomed until now to the idol, eat [this food] as food sacrificed to idols, and their conscience, [because it] is weak, is defiled.
8
But food does not bring us close to God. For neither if we eat do we have more, nor if we do not eat do we lack.
9
But watch out lest somehow this right of yours becomes a cause for stumbling to the weak.
10
For if someone should see you who has knowledge reclining for a meal in an idol's temple, will not his conscience, [because it] is weak, be strengthened so that [he] eats the food sacrificed to idols?
11
For the one who is weak--the brother for whom Christ died--is destroyed by your knowledge.
12
Now [if you] sin in this way against the brothers and wound their conscience, which is weak, you sin against Christ.
13
Therefore, if food causes my brother to sin, I will never eat meat {forever}, in order that I may not cause my brother to sin.