1 Corinthians 8

Concerning Food Sacrificed to Idols

¹Now concerning food sacrificed to idols, we know that “we all have knowledge.” Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.[#Considered by many interpreters to be a slogan used by the Corinthians to justify their behavior]

²If anyone thinks he knows anything, he has not yet known as it is necessary to know.

³But if anyone loves God, this one is known by him.

⁴Therefore, concerning the eating of food sacrificed to idols, we know that “an idol is nothing in the world” and that “there is no God except one.”[#Considered by many interpreters to be slogans used by the Corinthians to justify their behavior]

⁵For even if after all there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, just as there are many gods and many lords,

⁶yet to us there is one God, the Father,

and there is one Lord, Jesus Christ,

⁷But this knowledge is not in everyone. But some, being accustomed until now to the idol, eat this food as food sacrificed to idols, and their conscience, because it is weak, is defiled.[#*Here “because” is supplied as a component of the participle (“is”) which is understood as causal]

⁸But food does not bring us close to God. For neither if we eat do we have more, nor if we do not eat do we lack.[#Some manuscripts omit “For” and have “Neither if we do not eat do we lack, nor if we do eat do we have more”]

⁹But watch out lest somehow this right of yours becomes a cause for stumbling to the weak.

¹⁰For if someone should see you who has knowledge reclining for a meal in an idol’s temple, will not his conscience, because it is weak, be strengthened so that he eats the food sacrificed to idols?[#*Here “because” is supplied as a component of the participle (“is”) which is understood as causal]

¹¹For the one who is weak—the brother for whom Christ died—is destroyed by your knowledge.

¹²Now if you sin in this way against the brothers and wound their conscience, which is weak, you sin against Christ.[#*Here “if” is supplied as a component of the participle (“sin”) which is understood as conditional]

¹³Therefore, if food causes my brother to sin, I will never eat meat forever, in order that I may not cause my brother to sin.[#Literally “for the age”]