1 Corinthians 8

¹Now, concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that “we all possess knowledge.” Knowledge puffs a person up with pride, but love builds up the community. ²If anyone thinks they have attained knowledge of something, they do not yet know it in the way it is necessary to know. ³But if anyone loves God, that person is known by him.

⁴So, concerning the eating of food sacrificed to idols, we know that “an idol is nothing in the world” and that “there is no God but one.” ⁵For even if there are so-called “gods,” whether in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”— ⁶yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom all things come and for whom we live; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things come and through whom we live.

⁷However, not everyone possesses this knowledge. Some, because of their long-standing habit with idols, still eat this food as if it were a real sacrifice to an idol, and their moral consciousness, being weak, is defiled. ⁸Food will not bring us into God’s presence. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. ⁹But watch out that this freedom of choice of yours does not somehow become a tripwire for those who are weak. ¹⁰For if someone sees you—the one who has “knowledge”—reclining to eat in an idol-shrine, will not their moral consciousness, because it is weak, be “built up” to eat food sacrificed to idols? ¹¹So this weak person—a brother or sister for whom Christ died—is destroyed by your “knowledge.” ¹²When you sin against your brothers and sisters in this way, striking blows against their weak moral consciousness, you are sinning against Christ. ¹³Therefore, if food trips up my brother or sister, I will never eat meat again—never—so that I do not trip them up.