Take Care with Your Liberty

1Now concerning food sacrificed to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge [a]makes one conceited, but love edifies people. 2If anyone thinks that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know; 3but if anyone loves God, he is known by Him.

4Therefore, concerning the eating of food sacrificed to idols, we know that an idol is [b]nothing at all in the world, and that there is no God but one. 5For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, 6yet for us there is only one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.

7However, not all people have this knowledge; but some, being accustomed to the idol until now, eat food as if it were sacrificed to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. 8Now food will not bring us [c]close to God; we are neither [d]the worse if we do not eat, nor [e]the better if we do eat. 9But take care that this [f]freedom of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. 10For if someone sees you, the one who has knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, will his conscience, if he is weak, not be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idols? 11For through your knowledge the one who is weak is ruined, the brother or sister for whose sake Christ died. 12And so, by sinning against the brothers and sisters and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. 13Therefore, if food causes my brother to sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause my brother to sin.