The LORD spoke again to Moses and Aaron, telling them, “Say to the Israelites, ‘Of all the beasts of the earth, these ones you may eat: You may eat any animal that has a split hoof completely divided and that chews the cud. But of those that only chew the cud or only have a divided hoof, you are not to eat the following: The camel, though it chews the cud, does not have a divided hoof; it is unclean for you. The rock badger, though it chews the cud, does not have a divided hoof; it is unclean for you. . . .

Now the Spirit expressly states that in later times some will abandon the faith to follow deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons, influenced by the hypocrisy of liars, whose consciences are seared with a hot iron. They will prohibit marriage and require abstinence from certain foods that God has created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For every creation of God is good, and nothing that is received with thanksgiving should be rejected, because it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. . . .

You must abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell.

They will prohibit marriage and require abstinence from certain foods that God has created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on his opinions. For one person has faith to eat all things, while another, who is weak, eats only vegetables. The one who eats everything must not belittle the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One person regards a certain day above the others, while someone else considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. . . .

It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything to cause your brother to stumble.

Everything that lives and moves will be food for you; just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you all things.

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.

Therefore let no one judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a feast, a New Moon, or a Sabbath.

Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit contains seed. They will be yours for food.

The one who eats everything must not belittle the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted him.

Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to stumble.

For every creation of God is good, and nothing that is received with thanksgiving should be rejected,

The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, but the food of the serpent will be dust. They will neither harm nor destroy on all My holy mountain,” says the LORD.

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

because it does not enter his heart, but it goes into the stomach and then is eliminated.” (Thus all foods are clean.)

But food does not bring us closer to God: We are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.

Then some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And after engaging these men in sharp debate, Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question. Sent on their way by the church, they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria, recounting the conversion of the Gentiles and bringing great joy to all the brothers. On their arrival in Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and apostles and elders, to whom they reported all that God had done through them. But some believers from the party of the Pharisees stood up and declared, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses.” . . .

“Please test your servants for ten days. Let us be given only vegetables to eat and water to drink.

If you have died with Christ to the spiritual forces of the world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its regulations: “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!”? These will all perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such restrictions indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-prescribed worship, their false humility, and their harsh treatment of the body; but they are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.

Beloved, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from the desires of the flesh, which war against your soul.

They will prohibit marriage and require abstinence from certain foods that God has created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For every creation of God is good, and nothing that is received with thanksgiving should be rejected, because it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.

Marriage should be honored by all and the marriage bed kept undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.

For no word from God will ever fail.”

So they gave Him a piece of broiled fish, and He took it and ate it in front of them.

For one person has faith to eat all things, while another, who is weak, eats only vegetables.

Now the Spirit expressly states that in later times some will abandon the faith to follow deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons,

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control.

I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.

Abstain from every form of evil.

Instead, we should write and tell them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals, and from blood.

I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding;

“Everything is permissible for me,” but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me,” but I will not be mastered by anything.

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

because it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.

Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you; I will surely help you; I will uphold you with My right hand of righteousness.

For when I brought your fathers out of the land of Egypt, I did not merely command them about burnt offerings and sacrifices, but this is what I commanded them: Obey Me, and I will be your God, and you will be My people. You must walk in all the ways I have commanded you, so that it may go well with you.

And He took the bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body, given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience,

For it is God’s will that you should be holy: You must abstain from sexual immorality;

influenced by the hypocrisy of liars, whose consciences are seared with a hot iron.

You are sons of the LORD your God; do not cut yourselves or shave your foreheads on behalf of the dead, for you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD has chosen you to be a people for His prized possession out of all the peoples on the face of the earth. You must not eat any detestable thing. These are the animals that you may eat: The ox, the sheep, the goat, the deer, the gazelle, the roe deer, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, and the mountain sheep. . . .

But among you, as is proper among the saints, there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed.

For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the goat; the calf and young lion and fatling will be together, and a little child will lead them. The cow will graze with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play by the cobra’s den, and the toddler will reach into the viper’s nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the sea is full of water.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

And the pig, though it has a split hoof completely divided, does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you.

For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon!’

A man is not defiled by what enters his mouth, but by what comes out of it.”

Therefore I urge you, brothers, on account of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

He who observes a special day does so to the Lord; he who eats does so to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God.

Be careful, however, that your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak.

Deacons likewise must be dignified, not double-tongued or given to much wine or greedy for money.

As soon as night had fallen, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now the Bereans were more noble-minded than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if these teachings were true.

For I want you to know how much I am struggling for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me face to face, that they may be encouraged in heart, knit together in love, and filled with the full riches of complete understanding, so that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this so that no one will deceive you by smooth rhetoric. For although I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit, and I delight to see your orderly condition and firm faith in Christ. . . .

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit contains seed. They will be yours for food. And to every beast of the earth and every bird of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth—everything that has the breath of life in it—I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.

Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace and not by foods of no value to those devoted to them.

A Psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness for the sake of His name. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. . . .

This is the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants what must soon come to pass. He made it known by sending His angel to His servant John, who testifies to everything he saw. This is the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and obey what is written in it, because the time is near. John, To the seven churches in the province of Asia: Grace and peace to you from Him who is and was and is to come, and from the seven Spirits before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and has released us from our sins by His blood, . . .

I am convinced and fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean.

If your brother is distressed by what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother, for whom Christ died.

For it is God’s will that you should be holy: You must abstain from sexual immorality; each of you must know how to control his own body in holiness and honor,

Stop drinking only water and use a little wine instead, because of your stomach and your frequent ailments.

Flee from youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, together with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was called the Italian Regiment. He and all his household were devout and God-fearing. He gave generously to the people and prayed to God regularly. One day at about the ninth hour, he had a clear vision of an angel of God who came to him and said, “Cornelius!” Cornelius stared at him in fear and asked, “What is it, Lord?” The angel answered, “Your prayers and gifts to the poor have ascended as a memorial offering before God. Now send men to Joppa to call for a man named Simon who is called Peter. . . .

The whole assembly fell silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul describing the signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them.

In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord delivered into his hand Jehoiakim king of Judah, along with some of the articles from the house of God. He carried these off to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, where he put them in the treasury of his god. Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, the chief of his court officials, to bring in some Israelites from the royal family and the nobility— young men without blemish, handsome, gifted in all wisdom, knowledgeable, quick to understand, and qualified to serve in the king’s palace—and to teach them the language and literature of the Chaldeans. The king assigned them daily provisions of the royal food and wine. They were to be trained for three years, after which they were to enter the king’s service. . . .

Here is what I have seen to be good and fitting: to eat and drink, and to find satisfaction in all the labor one does under the sun during the few days of life that God has given him—for this is his lot.

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you will fall on every living creature on the earth, every bird of the air, every creature that crawls on the ground, and all the fish of the sea. They are delivered into your hand. Everything that lives and moves will be food for you; just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you all things. But you must not eat meat with its lifeblood still in it. And surely I will require the life of any man or beast by whose hand your lifeblood is shed. I will demand an accounting from anyone who takes the life of his fellow man: . . .

While He was reclining at the table with them, He took bread, spoke a blessing and broke it, and gave it to them.

“We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered. “Bring them here to Me,” Jesus said. And He directed the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, He spoke a blessing. Then He broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. About five thousand men were fed, in addition to women and children.

So in the morning Balaam got up, saddled his donkey, and went with the princes of Moab. Then God’s anger was kindled because Balaam was going along, and the angel of the LORD stood in the road to oppose him. Balaam was riding his donkey, and his two servants were with him. When the donkey saw the angel of the LORD standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand, she turned off the path and went into a field. So Balaam beat her to return her to the path. Then the angel of the LORD stood in a narrow passage between two vineyards, with walls on either side. And the donkey saw the angel of the LORD and pressed herself against the wall, crushing Balaam’s foot against it. So he beat her once again. . . .

and put a knife to your throat if you possess a great appetite.

For one person has faith to eat all things, while another, who is weak, eats only vegetables. The one who eats everything must not belittle the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted him.

But the one who has doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and everything that is not from faith is sin.

Command and teach these things.

By pointing out these things to the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, nourished by the words of faith and sound instruction that you have followed.

For physical exercise is of limited value, but godliness is valuable in every way, holding promise for the present life and for the one to come.

I am afraid that when I come again, my God will humble me before you, and I will be grieved over many who have sinned earlier and have not repented of their acts of impurity, sexual immorality, and debauchery.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae: Grace and peace to you from God our Father. We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard about your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all the saints— the faith and love proceeding from the hope stored up for you in heaven, of which you have already heard in the word of truth, the gospel . . .

Therefore, since you have been raised with Christ, strive for the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Put to death, therefore, the components of your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry. . . .

Put to death, therefore, the components of your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry.

Masters, supply your slaves with what is right and fair, since you know that you also have a Master in heaven. Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful, as you pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may declare it clearly, as I should. Act wisely toward outsiders, redeeming the time. . . .

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance as our way of life.

For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God,

Now to Him who is able to do so much more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us,

Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to reckless indiscretion. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery; idolatry and sorcery; hatred, discord, jealousy, and rage; rivalries, divisions, factions, and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

Do not be deceived: God is not to be mocked. Whatever a man sows, he will reap in return.

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think on these things.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and dine with him, and he with Me.