It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything that causes your brother to stumble.

(for rulers cause no fear for good conduct but for bad). Do you desire not to fear authority? Do good and you will receive its commendation,

just as it is written, “Look, I am laying in Zion a stone that will cause people to stumble and a rock that will make them fall, yet the one who believes in him will not be put to shame.”

Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. For although all things are clean, it is wrong to cause anyone to stumble by what you eat.

Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who create dissensions and obstacles contrary to the teaching that you learned. Avoid them!

This is the reason I was often hindered from coming to you.

And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose,

Therefore we must not pass judgment on one another, but rather determine never to place an obstacle or a trap before a brother or sister.

For if your brother or sister is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. Do not destroy by your food someone for whom Christ died.

For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged the natural sexual relations for unnatural ones,

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires,

and I died. So I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life brought death!

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

And David says, “Let their table become a snare and trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them;

For this reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants devoted to governing.

Did that which is good, then, become death to me? Absolutely not! But sin, so that it would be shown to be sin, produced death in me through what is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful.

For if, by the transgression of the one man, death reigned through the one, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ!

and thus the Gentiles glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, “Because of this I will confess you among the Gentiles, and I will sing praises to your name.”