Differences of Conscience

¹Now y’all need to accept the one who is weak in faith, not having disputes over opinions.

²One person believes in eating anything, but the weak person only eats vegetables.

³The one who eats everything must not despise the one who doesn’t, and the one who doesn’t eat is not to judge the one who eats, for God has accepted them.

⁴Who are you who judge another’s servant? Before their own lord, the servant stands or falls. And they will stand, for the Lord has power to make them stand.

⁵One person regards one day as more important, another regards every day alike. Each person must be fully convinced in their own mind.

⁶The one who observes the day does so to the Lord. The one who eats, eats to the Lord and gives thanks to God. The one who doesn’t eat, does so to the Lord and gives God thanks.

⁷For none of us lives for ourselves, and none dies for ourselves.

⁸For if we live, we live to the Lord. And if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.

⁹For this reason Christ died, rose, and lived again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.

¹⁰But you, why do you judge your sibling? Or why do you despise your sibling? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.

¹¹For it is written,

“‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow to me.

Every tongue will publicly acknowledge God.’”

¹²So then each one of us will give account of ourselves to God.

¹³Therefore let us not judge one another anymore. Instead y’all make this judgment: never put a stumbling block or trap in the way of a sibling.

¹⁴I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean of itself. But if anyone considers something to be unclean, then it is unclean for them.

¹⁵Yet if your sibling is grieved because of your food, you are no longer walking in love. Don’t destroy with your food someone for whom Christ died.

¹⁶Therefore don’t let what is good for y’all’s be spoken of as evil.

¹⁷For the Empire of God is about not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit,

¹⁸for anyone who serves Christ in these things is acceptable to God and approved by humans.

¹⁹So then, let us pursue things that make peace and build one another up.

²⁰You must not destroy the work of God for sake of food. All things are indeed clean; however, it is evil to create a stumbling block for another human by eating.

²¹It is excellent to not eat meat, drink wine, or do anything that causes your sibling to stumble.

²²The faith you have, keep to yourself before God. Blessed are those who do not judge themselves by what they approve.

²³But whoever has doubts is condemned if they eat, because their eating isn’t from faith; and whatever is not of faith is sin.