being weak, is defiled. 008:008 But food will not commend us to God. For neither, if we don't eat, are we the worse; nor, if we eat, are we the better. 008:009 But be careful that by no means does this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to the weak. 008:010 For if a man sees you who have knowledge sitting in an idol's temple, won't his conscience, if he is weak, be emboldened to eat things sacrificed to idols? 008:011 And through your knowledge, he who is weak perishes, the brother for whose sake Christ died. 008:012 Thus, sinning against the brothers, and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. 008:013 Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will eat no meat forevermore, that I don't cause my brother to stumble. 009:001 Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Haven't I seen Jesus Christ, our Lord? Aren't you my work in the Lord? 009:002 If to others I am not an apostle, yet at least I am to you; for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. 009:003 My defense to those who examine me is this. 009:004 Have we no right to eat and to drink? 009:005 Have we no right to take along a wife who is a believer, even as the rest of the apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas? 009:006 Or have only Barnabas and I no right to not work? 009:007 What soldier ever serves at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard, and doesn't eat of its fruit? Or who feeds a flock, and doesn't drink from the flock's milk? 009:008 Do I speak these things according to the ways of men? Or doesn't the law also say the same thing? 009:009 For it is written in the law of Moses, "You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain."{Deuteronomy 25:4} Is it for the oxen that God cares, 009:010 or does he say it assuredly for our sake? Yes, it was written for our sake, because he who plows ought to plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope should partake of his hope. 009:011 If we sowed to you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we reap your fleshly things? 009:012 If others partake of this right over you, don't we yet more? Nevertheless we did not use this right, but we bear all things, that we may cause no hindrance to the Good News of Christ. 009:013 Don't you know that those who serve around sacred things eat from the things of the temple, and those who wait on the altar have their portion with the altar? 009:014 Even so the Lord ordained that those who proclaim the Good News should live from the Good News. 009:015 But I have used none of these things, and I don't write these things that it may be done so in my case; for I would rather die, than that anyone should make my boasting void. 009:016 For if I preach the Good News, I have nothing to boast about;