10
“They Were Written Down as Warnings to Us”
1 In this regard I want to remind you, brothers and sisters, about what happened to our ancestors in the wilderness. All of them were led by the very pillar of cloud itself. All of them, too, passed through what? Through the Red Sea.
2 All of them, too, were “baptized,” so to speak, in the cloud and in the sea, into union with Moses in a shared deliverance.
3 It was all of them who ate the same God-provided food,
4 and it was all of them who drank the same God-provided drink. Indeed, they were drinking from the God-provided Rock that was accompanying them (that Rock was the Messiah).
5 Yet how many from that generation did God ultimately approve to enter the land? Only a few. Most were “struck down in the wilderness.”+
6 As for these events, it was as foreshadows of things to come, for our instruction, that they took place, warning us not to crave wicked things, as did those people.
7 You must not become idolaters, as did some of them; as it is written, “The people feasted and danced in honor of a pagan god.”+
8 And we must not commit sexual immorality, as did some of them—resulting in the death, in a single day, of twenty-three thousand!
9 Nor are we to put the Messiah to the test, as did some of them—and were killed, as a result, by snakes.
10 You must not grumble and complain, as did some of them—and as a consequence died at the hand of the destroying angel.
11 As for these events, it was as foreshadows of things to come that they happened to our ancestors. They were written down, moreover, as warnings to us, on whom is about to come the very culmination of the ages.
12 So then, if someone thinks he is firm in his loyalty and faith, he must be careful, lest he go astray.
13 You are no less susceptible to temptation than any of the rest of weak humanity. Yet God is faithful, and he won’t allow you to be tempted beyond your ability to resist; when the temptation comes, he will provide, too, a means of escape, the strength to endure.
14 That is indeed why, my dear friends, you must flee from idolatry!
15 It is as to sensible people that I am speaking. Weigh out for yourselves the truth of what I’m about to say.
16 The cup of blessing we use in the Lord’s supper, over which we offer prayers of blessing: When we drink it, we are in fellowship with the Messiah, are we not, as we share in his blood? The bread we break: When we eat it, we are in fellowship with the Messiah, are we not, as we share in his body?
17 There is one loaf, showing that we are, though many, a single and united body. All of us, you see, partake of that one loaf.
18 Consider the people of Israel. Those who eat their portion of the sacrifices in the sacrificial meal are in fellowship, are they not, with the one true God at whose altar the sacrifices are offered?
19 Now am I suggesting by these things that food sacrificed to idols is, in itself, of any importance? Or that an idol is, after all, something other than a worthless, man-made object?
20 Not at all. My point is that the sacrifices offered by idol-worshipers at pagan altars are sacrificed “to demons and not to God,”+ and I don’t want you to be in fellowship with demons.
21 You cannot drink from the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You can’t partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.
22 Or do we dare arouse the jealous anger of the Lord? Do we really think he will let us defy him and get away with it?
23 “All things we are free to enjoy”—yes, but that doesn’t mean that all things necessarily lead to what is good. “All things we are free to enjoy”—yes, but that doesn’t mean that all things necessarily build others up.
24 It isn’t his own benefit that each person is to seek, but that of others.
25 Eat whatever is being sold in the meat market, without raising any questions of conscience at all.
26 “It is the LORD,” after all, “to whom the earth and everything in it belongs.”+
27 Suppose an unbeliever invites some of you for a meal and you decide to go—go ahead and eat whatever it is you are being served, without raising any questions of conscience at all.
28 If someone, however, to ᵖyou, says, “this meat comes from an animal sacrificed to one of the gods,” then don’t eat it, as an act of love toward that person who pointed it out, and to help avoid a violation of conscience—
29 the conscience, I mean, of the other person, not yours. (Why should my freedom, after all, be called into question by another person’s conscience?
30 If, on my part, it is with thanksgiving that I am participating in the meal, why should I be criticized over something for which I myself am giving thanks?)
31 Whatever you do, therefore, whether it’s eating or drinking or anything else, everything, here is how you are to do it: In a way that will bring honor to God.
32 Don’t become a stumbling block, to Jews, or Gentiles, or God’s assemblies,
33 just as I, too, constantly take it upon myself to serve people of all kinds, in all things, seeking what is beneficial not for my myself, but for as many people as possible, so that they may be saved.