Thus, the main biblical commandment explored in the chapter is lifnei iver, "before the blind, thou shalt not lay a stumbling block".

This chapter also deals with the prohibition against a Jew helping to deliver or nurse a gentile child, so as to not bring an idol-worshiper into the world.

Since the chief aim in the Gemara is to explain and comment on the Mishnah, this is implied, and the topics mentioned will be ones that aren't directly about the Mishna (as a commentary is extremely difficult to summarize in a few lines).

Chapter One (folios 2-22) The tractate jumps almost straight into a long series of aggadah, and abounds in aggadic material such as the plight of the nations in the World to Come (2), the Noahide Covenant and God's laughter (3), God's anger and punishment methodologies for both the Jews and Gentiles (4), the sin of the Golden Calf and its relation to immortality (5), an exposition of Jewish history relative to the destruction of the Second Temple (8-9), the nature of heresy and the stories of the martyrdom of some eminent Rabbis in the Roman persecution (16-18), and a detailed exposition of Psalm 1 (19).

Halakhic material less related to the tractate includes the laws of a Jewish apostate (26-27), a unique section outlining in detail many medicinal remedies from the Talmudic era (28-29), the safety/contamination issues in leaving water/wine uncovered (30), the process of overruling a previous Rabbinic court (37), and the finer details of recognising kosher fish (39-40).

Extraneous halakhic material includes the activities allowed and forbidden in the Sabbatical Year and cases of Rabbis making rulings for specific communities following their own opinion (59).

Other halakhic material includes the laws of a harlot's wage (62-63), the definition of a Ger Toshav (64), acquisition of property by a Gentile (71-72), and settling a price in negotiations (72).

Some later authorities took the continuation of that Tosafot to mean that this special type of avodah zarah is forbidden to Jews but permissible to gentiles, so that a non-Jew who engages in Christian worship commits no sin.

[7]An Aggadic legend from tractate Avodah Zarah 8a contains contemporary observations regarding the Roman mid-winter holidays Saturnalia and Calenda and, a talmudic hypothesis about the pre-historic origin of the winter solstice festival, that would later become the day of Sol Invictus and Christmas.

In the Middle Ages, the entire tractate was expunged from many European editions by Christian censors, and it was considerably difficult to obtain a copy.