Food Offered to Idols

8 Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.^(A)

⁷ It is not everyone, however, who has this knowledge. Since some have become so accustomed to idols until now, they still think of the food they eat as food offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled.^(A)

⁴ Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “no idol in the world really exists” and that “there is no God but one.”^(A)

³ Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat, for God has welcomed them.

¹⁴ But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the people of Israel, so that they would eat food sacrificed to idols and engage in sexual immorality.^[a](A)

²⁰ But I have this against you: you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet and is teaching and beguiling my servants to engage in sexual immorality^[a] and to eat food sacrificed to idols.^(A)

² Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge,^(A)

Paul’s Reason for Writing So Boldly

¹⁴ I myself feel confident about you, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another.^(A)

²⁹ that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled^[a] and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”^(A)