⁷ However, not everyone has this knowledge. Some have been so used to idolatry up until now that when they eat food sacrificed to an idol, their conscience, being weak, is defiled.

¹³ Therefore, if food causes my brother or sister to fall, I will never again eat meat,^(A) so that I won’t cause my brother or sister to fall.

⁷ Don’t become idolaters^(A) as some of them were; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and got up to party.^{[a][b](B) 8} Let us not commit sexual immorality^(C) as some of them did,^[c] and in a single day twenty-three thousand people died.^(D)

Warning against Idolatry

¹⁴ So then, my dear friends, flee from idolatry. ¹⁵ I am speaking as to sensible people. Judge for yourselves what I am saying. ¹⁶ The cup^(A) of blessing^(B) that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread^(C) that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? ¹⁷ Because there is one bread, we who are many are one^(D) body, since all of us share the one bread. ¹⁸ Consider the people of Israel.^[a] Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar?^{(E) 19} What am I saying then? That food sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? ²⁰ No, but I do say that what they^[b] sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons! ²¹ You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot share in the Lord’s table and the table of demons. ²² Or are we provoking the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?^(F)

Christian Liberty

²³ “Everything is permissible,”^[c] but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible,”^[d] but not everything builds up. ²⁴ No one is to seek his own good, but the good of the other person.^(G)

²⁵ Eat everything that is sold in the meat market, without raising questions for the sake of conscience, ²⁶ since the earth is the Lord’s,^(H) and all that is in it.^{[e](I) 27} If any of the unbelievers invites you over and you want to go, eat everything that is set before you, without raising questions for the sake of conscience. ²⁸ But if someone says to you, “This is food from a sacrifice,” do not eat it,^(J) out of consideration for the one who told you, and for the sake of conscience.^[f]

¹⁴ But I have a few things against you. You have some there who hold to the teaching of Balaam,^(A) who taught Balak to place a stumbling block^[a] in front of the Israelites: to eat meat sacrificed to idols^(B) and to commit sexual immorality.^(C)

²⁰ But I have this against you: You tolerate the woman Jezebel,^(A) who calls herself a prophetess and teaches and deceives my servants to commit sexual immorality and to eat meat sacrificed to idols.^(B)