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)

¹⁷ “‘This is a lasting ordinance^(A) for the generations to come,^(B) wherever you live:^(C) You must not eat any fat or any blood.^(D)’”

⁴ “But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it.^(A)

⁴ So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols:^(A) We know that “An idol is nothing at all in the world”^(B) and that “There is no God but one.”^{(C) 5} For even if there are so-called gods,^(D) whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”), ⁶ yet for us there is but one God,^(E) the Father,^(F) from whom all things came^(G) and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord,^(H) Jesus Christ, through whom all things came^(I) and through whom we live.

⁷ But not everyone possesses this knowledge.^(J) 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,^(K) it is defiled. ⁸ But food does not bring us near to God;^(L) we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.

⁹ Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block^(M) to the weak.^{(N) 10} 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?^{(O) 11} So this weak brother or sister, for whom Christ died, is destroyed^(P) by your knowledge. ¹² When you sin against them^(Q) in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.^{(R) 13} Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall.^(S)

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 Do not be idolaters,^(A) as some of them were; as it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.”^{[a](B) 8} We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did—and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died.^(C)