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In Athens
While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.
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As for the Gentile believers, we have written to them our decision that they should abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality.”
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You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?
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Concerning Food Sacrificed to Idols
Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that “We all possess knowledge.” But knowledge puffs up while love builds up.
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So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that “An idol is nothing at all in the world” and that “There is no God but one.”
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But not everyone possesses this knowledge. Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat sacrificial food they think of it as having been sacrificed to a god, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled.
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For if someone with a weak conscience sees you, with all your knowledge, eating in an idol’s temple, won’t that person be emboldened to eat what is sacrificed to idols?
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You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other you were influenced and led astray to mute idols.
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What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”
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for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God,
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Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.
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Nevertheless, I have a few things against you: There are some among you who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin so that they ate food sacrificed to idols and committed sexual immorality.
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Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.
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The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk.
