Thematic Bible




Thematic Bible



But I have a few [things] against you: that you have there those who hold fast to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat food sacrificed to idols and to commit sexual immorality.

Their silver they will discard on the streets, and filth will be their gold; their silver and their gold will not be able to rescue them on the day of the wrath of Yahweh. They will not satisfy their {hunger} and their stomachs they will not fill, for their guilt will be their stumbling block.


Therefore, let us no longer pass judgment on one another, but rather decide this: not to place a cause for stumbling or a temptation before a brother.


For {each person} from the house of Israel, and from the alien who dwells as an alien in Israel, who separates himself {from following me} and brings up his idols into his heart and {places before himself} a stumbling block of his guilt, and [yet] he comes to the prophet to consult him concerning me, I Yahweh will answer him myself.


"Son of man, these men took up their idols into their heart and {they placed before themselves} a stumbling block of their guilt. {Should I really let myself be consulted by them}? Therefore speak with them, and you must say to them, 'Thus says the Lord Yahweh: "Every person from the house of Israel who brings up his idols into his heart and {places before himself} a stumbling block of his guilt and [yet] he comes to the prophet, I Yahweh, I will respond to him through this act with [respect to] the multitude of his idols,

Woe to you, legal experts, because you have taken away the key to knowledge! You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering!"

And one shall say, "Build up, build up! Clear [the] way! Remove [the] obstacles from the way of my people!"

{Therefore} thus says Yahweh: "Look, I [am] about to put before this people stumbling blocks, and they will stumble against them, fathers and children together, neighbor and his friend will perish."

And {when the righteous turns from his righteousness} and does injustice, and I place a stumbling block {before him}, he will die, for you did not warn him. Because of his sin he will die, and his righteousness that he did will not be remembered, and his blood I shall seek from your hand.

"I will destroy humanity and beast; I will destroy the birds of the sky and the fish of the sea, and the stumbling blocks with the wicked. And I will cut off humankind from the face of the earth"--a declaration of Yahweh.

And David says, "Let their table become a snare and a trap, and a cause for stumbling and a retribution to them;

But watch out lest somehow this right of yours becomes a cause for stumbling to the weak. For 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? For the one who is weak--the brother for whom Christ died--is destroyed by your knowledge. read more.
Now [if you] sin in this way against the brothers and wound their conscience, which is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food causes my brother to sin, I will never eat meat {forever}, in order that I may not cause my brother to sin.