The phrase because of food may require some amplification in order to indicate that it is the eating of certain kinds of food, not merely food itself, which is involved—for example, “Simply because you think that any kind of food can be eaten, do not therefore destroy what God has done” or “For the sake of being able to eat any kind of food, do not destroy what God has done.”

What God has done (literally “the work of God”) may be a reference either to the weak brother (v. 15) or in a more general sense to the church, which is the result of God’s work through Jesus Christ.

All foods may be eaten is literally “all things are clean,” but it should be taken in the specific sense that the Good News Translation employs (see New American Bible “all foods are clean”).

But it is wrong to eat anything that will cause someone else to fall into sin translates a clause which is obscure in Greek. A literal translation is “it is bad for the man who eats through stumbling.” Most exegetes understand this as a reference to the man who is strong in faith and who may cause someone else to fall into sin by what he eats. A few take this as a reference to the man who is weak in faith and who by eating injures his own conscience and so causes himself to fall into sin (New American Bible “but it is wrong for a man to eat when the food offends his conscience”). Most translations are explicit in the way in which they interpret these words, and the New American Bible is apparently the only modern English translation that follows the second interpretation.

The final portion of verse 20 may be restructured as conditional: “If someone else is caused to fall into sin because of what you eat, then this is wrong.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1973. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .