⁴ For everything God created is good,^(A) and nothing is to be rejected^(B) if it is received with thanksgiving,

²⁰ Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food.^(A) All food is clean,^(B) but it is wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble.^(C)

²⁵ Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience,^(A)

¹⁴ I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself.^(A) But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person it is unclean.^(B)

The Believer’s Freedom

²³ “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial.^(A) “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive.

²⁵ 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.”^(A)

⁷ Then I heard a voice telling me, ‘Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.’

⁸ “I replied, ‘Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’

⁹ “The voice spoke from heaven a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’^(A)

³ They forbid people to marry^(A) and order them to abstain from certain foods,^(B) which God created^(C) to be received with thanksgiving^(D) by those who believe and who know the truth.

²⁰ Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols,^(A) from sexual immorality,^(B) from the meat of strangled animals and from blood.^{(C) 21} For the law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”^(D)