Glorify God in Body and Spirit

¹² “All things are permitted for me,” but not all things are beneficial. “All things are permitted for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything. 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) 14} And God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power.^{(B) 15} Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!^{(C) 16} Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said, “The two shall be one flesh.”^{(D) 17} But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.^{(E) 18} Shun sexual immorality!^[b] Every sin that a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person^[c] sins against the body itself.^{(F) 19} Or do you not know that your body is a temple^[d] of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?^{(G) 20} For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.^(H)

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) 2} Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge,^{(B) 3} but anyone who loves God is known by him.^(C)

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.”^{(D) 5} Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as in fact there are many gods and many lords— ⁶ yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.^(E)

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.^{(F) 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.^{(G) 9} But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.^{(H) 10} For if others see you, who possess knowledge, eating in the temple of an idol, might they not, since their conscience is weak, be encouraged to the point of eating food sacrificed to idols? ¹¹ So by your knowledge the weak brother or sister for whom Christ died is destroyed.^{(I) 12} But when you thus sin against brothers and sisters and wound their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. ¹³ Therefore, if food is a cause of their falling, I will never again eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall.^(J)