⁸ “Food will not bring us close to God.”^[a] We are no worse off if we do not eat and no better off if we do.^(A)

¹⁷ For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.^(A)

⁹ Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by regulations about food,^[a] which have not benefited those who observe them.^(A)

¹³ “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food,”^[a] and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is meant not for sexual immorality but for the Lord and the Lord for the body.^(A)

Warnings against False Teachers

²⁰ If with Christ you died to the elemental principles^[a] of the world, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations,^{(A) 21} “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? ²² All these regulations refer to things that perish with use; they are simply human commands and teachings.^{(B) 23} These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-imposed piety, humility, and severe treatment of the body, but they are of no value in checking self-indulgence.^[b]