The First to the Corinthians

8 Now concerning food offered to idols:+ We know we all have knowledge.+ Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.+ 2 If anyone thinks he knows something, he does not yet know it as he should know it. 3 But if anyone loves God, this one is known by him.

4 Now concerning the eating of food offered to idols, we know that an idol is nothing+ in the world and that there is no God but one.+ 5 For even though there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth,+ just as there are many “gods” and many “lords,” 6 there is actually to us one God,+ the Father,+ from whom all things are and we for him;+ and there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things are+ and we through him.

7 However, not all have this knowledge.+ But some, because of their former association with the idol, eat food as something sacrificed to an idol,+ and their conscience, being weak, is defiled.+ 8 But food will not bring us nearer to God;+ we are no worse off if we do not eat, nor better off if we eat.+ 9 But keep watching that your right to choose does not somehow become a stumbling block to those who are weak.+ 10 For if anyone should see you who have knowledge having a meal in an idol temple, will not the conscience of that one who is weak be emboldened to the point of eating food offered to idols? 11 So by your knowledge the man who is weak is being ruined, your brother for whose sake Christ died.+ 12 When you sin against your brothers in this way and wound their weak conscience,+ you are sinning against Christ. 13 That is why if food makes my brother stumble, I will never again eat meat at all, so that I will not make my brother stumble.+