³ Only the prince, because he is a prince, may sit in it to eat food before the Lord; he shall enter by way of the vestibule of the gate and shall go out by the same way.”^(A)

² The prince shall enter by the vestibule of the gate from outside and shall take his stand by the post of the gate. The priests shall offer his burnt offering and his offerings of well-being, and he shall bow down at the entryway of the gate. Then he shall go out, but the gate shall not be closed until evening.^(A)

¹⁸ Consider the people of Israel:^[a] Are not those who eat the sacrifices partners in the altar?^{(A) 19} What do I imply, then? That food sacrificed to idols is anything or that an idol is anything? ²⁰ No, I imply that what they^[b] sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons.^{(B) 21} You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.^{(C) 22} Or are we provoking the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?^(D)

Do All to the Glory of God

²³ “All things are permitted,” but not all things are beneficial. “All things are permitted,” but not all things build up. ²⁴ Do not seek your own advantage but that of the other.^{(E) 25} Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience, ²⁶ for “the earth and its fullness are the Lord’s.”^{(F) 27} If an unbeliever invites you to a meal and you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience. ²⁸ But if someone says to you, “This has been offered in sacrifice,” then do not eat it, out of consideration for the one who informed you and for the sake of conscience— ²⁹ I mean the other’s conscience, not your own. For why should my freedom be subject to the judgment of someone else’s conscience?^{(G) 30} If I partake with thankfulness, why should I be denounced because of that for which I give thanks?^(H)

³¹ So, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.^{(I) 32} Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God,^{(J) 33} just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage but that of many, so that they may be saved.^(K)

²⁵ They shall live in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, in which your ancestors lived; they and their children and their children’s children shall live there forever, and my servant David shall be their prince forever.^(A)

²⁴ And I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them; I the Lord have spoken.^(A)

⁵⁴ and Jacob offered a sacrifice on the height and called his kinsfolk to eat bread, and they ate bread and tarried all night in the hill country.

⁸ When the prince enters, he shall come in by the vestibule of the gate, and he shall go out by the same way.^(A)

⁹ “When the people of the land come before the Lord at the appointed festivals, whoever enters by the north gate to worship shall go out by the south gate, and whoever enters by the south gate shall go out by the north gate: they shall not return by way of the gate by which they entered but shall go out straight ahead.^{(B) 10} When they come in, the prince shall come in with them, and when they go out, he shall go out.

⁹ Then he measured the vestibule of the gateway, eight cubits, and its posts, two cubits, and the vestibule of the gate was at the inner end.

³¹ The king stood in his place and made a covenant before the Lord, to follow the Lord, keeping his commandments, his decrees, and his statutes, with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant that were written in this book.^(A)