Chapter 8

¹But concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know, (for we all have knowledge: knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. ²If any one think he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know [it]. ³But if any one love God, he is known of him): ⁴-- concerning then the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that an idol [is] nothing in [the] world, and that there [is] no other God save one. ⁵For and if indeed there are [those] called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, (as there are gods many, and lords many,) ⁶yet to us [there is] one God, the Father, of whom all things, and we for him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom [are] all things, and we by him. ⁷But knowledge [is] not in all: but some, with conscience of the idol, until now eat as of a thing sacrificed to idols; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. ⁸But meat does not commend us to God; neither if we should not eat do we come short; nor if we should eat have we an advantage. ⁹But see lest anywise this your right [to eat] itself be a stumbling-block to the weak. ¹⁰For if any one see thee, who hast knowledge, sitting at table in an idol-house, shall not his conscience, he being weak, be emboldened to eat the things sacrificed to the idol? ¹¹and the weak [one], the brother for whose sake Christ died, will perish through thy knowledge. ¹²Now, thus sinning against the brethren, and wounding their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ. ¹³Wherefore if meat be a fall-trap to my brother, I will eat no flesh for ever, that I may not be a fall-trap to my brother.