You have no share or part in this movement, for your heart is not honest in the sight of God.

But an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Get up and go south, by the road that runs from Jerusalem to Gaza." (The town is now deserted.)

and was on his way home. He was sitting in his car, reading the prophet Isaiah.

Philip ran up and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and he said to him, "Do you understand what you are reading?"

This was the passage of Scripture that he was reading: "Like a sheep he was led away to be slaughtered, And just as a lamb is dumb before its shearer, He does not open his mouth.

His sentence ended in his humiliation. Who will tell the story of his posterity? For his life is perished from the earth."

"Tell me, of whom is the prophet speaking?" said the eunuch to Philip, "Of himself, or of someone else?"

As they went on along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, "Here is some water! What is there to prevent my being baptized?"

But on his journey, as he was approaching Damascus, a sudden light flashed around him from heaven,

The Lord said to him, "Get up and go to the street called the Straight Street, and ask at the house of Judas for a man named Saul, from Tarsus, for he is there praying.

He is here with authority to arrest everyone who calls upon your name."

The Lord said to him, "Go! This man is the means I have chosen for carrying my name among the heathen and their kings, and among the descendants of Israel.

Everyone was astonished, and said, "Is not he the man who made such havoc of the people in Jerusalem who call upon that name, and who came here especially for the purpose of arresting such persons and taking them before the high priests?"

As Peter was traveling about among them all, he happened to visit God's people at Lydda.

Among the disciples at Joppa there was a woman named Tabitha, which is in Greek Dorcas, that is, gazelle. She had devoted herself to doing good and to acts of charity.

As Joppa was near Lydda, the disciples heard that Peter was there, and they sent two men to him, urging him to come over without delay.

There was at Caesarea a man named Cornelius, a captain in what was known as the Italian regiment.

He was a devout man, who feared God, as did all the members of his household. He was liberal in charities to the people, and always prayed to God.

He stared at him in terror, and said, "What is it, sir?" "Your prayers and charities," the angel answered, "have gone up and been remembered before God.

Now send men to Joppa, for a man named Simon, who is also called Peter.

He is being entertained at the house of a tanner named Simon, which is close to the sea."

As Peter was pondering over his vision, the Spirit said to him, "There are two men looking for you.

Then Peter went down to see the men, and said to them, "I am the man you are asking for. What is the reason for your coming?"

They answered, "Cornelius, who is a captain, and an upright and God-fearing man, and who has a good reputation with the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house, and to listen to what you have to say."

and he said to them, "You know that it is against the Law for a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit one; but God has taught me not to call anyone vulgar or unclean.

So send to Joppa and invite Simon who is called Peter to come here. He is staying at the house of a tanner named Simon, close to the sea.'

but welcomes the man of any nation who reveres him and does what is right.

He has sent his message to Israel's descendants, and made the good news of peace known to them through Jesus Christ. He is Lord of us all.

not by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had designated beforehand, that is, by us, who ate and drank with him after he had risen from the dead.

He also directed us to announce to the people and bear solemn testimony that he is the one whom God has appointed to be the judge of the living and the dead.

It is of him that all the prophets bear witness that everyone that believes in him will have his sins forgiven in his name."

"Can anyone refuse the use of water to baptize these people when they have received the holy Spirit just as we did?"

Then he told us how he had seen the angel stand in his house and say, 'Send to Joppa for a man named Simon who is also called Peter,

When I began to speak to them, the holy Spirit fell upon them just as it did upon us at the beginning,

and found him and brought him to Antioch. The result was that for a whole year they met with the church, and taught large numbers of people, and it was at Antioch that the disciples first came to be known as Christians.

But they said to her, "You are crazy!" But she insisted that it was so. Then they said, "Then it is his guardian angel!"

But when morning came, there was no little commotion among the soldiers as to what could have become of Peter.

and the people shouted in applause, "It is a god's voice, not a man's!"

As they were engaged in worshiping the Lord and in fasting, the holy Spirit said, "Set Barnabas and Saul apart for me, for the work to which I have called them."

When they reached Salamis, they proclaimed God's message in the Jewish synagogues. They had John with them as their assistant.

They went through the whole island as far as Paphos, and there they came across a Jewish magician and false prophet named Barjesus.

But Elymas the magician??or that is the meaning of his name??pposed them, and tried to keep the governor from accepting the faith.

and said, "You monster of underhandedness and cunning! You son of the devil! You enemy of all that is right! Will you never stop trying to make the Lord's straight paths crooked?

The Lord's hand is right upon you, and you will be blind and unable even to see the sun for a time." Instantly a mist of darkness fell upon him, and he groped about for someone to lead him by the hand.

It is from his descendants that God has brought to Israel as he promised to do, a savior in Jesus,

in preparation for whose coming John had preached to all the people of Israel baptism in token of repentance.

Toward the end of his career, John said, 'What do you suppose that I am? I am not he! No! Someone is coming after me, the shoes on whose feet I am not fit to untie!'

Brothers! Descendants of the house of Abraham, and those others among you who reverence God! It is to us that this message of salvation has been sent.

that God has fulfilled to us, their children, the promise that he made to our forefathers, by raising Jesus to life, just as the Scripture says in the second psalm, You are my Son! Today I have become your Father!'

Now as evidence that he has raised him from the dead, never again to return to decay, he said this: 'I will fulfil to you my sacred promises to David.'

You must understand therefore, my brothers, that through him the forgiveness of your sins is announced to you,

and that through union with him everyone who believes is cleared of every charge of which the Law of Moses could not clear you.

Take care, therefore, that what is said in the prophets does not prove true of you:

" 'Look, you scoffers! Then wonder and begone! For I am doing something in your times Which you will never believe even when it is related to you!' "

As they were going out, the people begged to have all this said to them again on the following Sabbath,

For these are the orders the Lord has given us: " 'I have made you a light for the heathen, To be the means of salvation to the very ends of the earth!' "

In the streets of Lystra a man used to sit who had not the use of his feet. He had been lame from his birth, and had never been able to walk.

He was listening to Paul as he talked, when Paul looked at him and, seeing that he had faith that he would be cured,

The crowds, seeing what Paul had done, shouted in the Lycaonian language, "The gods have come down to us in human form!"

Some people came down from Judea and began to teach the brothers that unless they were circumcised as Moses prescribed, they could not be saved.

The church saw them off upon their journey, and as they traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria they told of the conversion of the heathen, and caused great rejoicing among all the brothers.

After a long discussion, Peter got up and said to them, "Brothers, you know that in the early days God chose that of you all I should be the one from whose lips the heathen should hear the message of the good news and believe it.

And God who knows men's hearts testified for them by giving them the holy Spirit just as he had done to us,

making no difference between us and them, but cleansing their hearts by faith.

Why, we believe that it is by the mercy of the Lord Jesus that we are saved just as they are."

As we have heard that some of our number, without any instructions from us, have disturbed you by their teaching and unsettled your minds,

Some time after, Paul said to Barnabas, "Come, let us go back and revisit the brothers in each of the towns where we made the Lord's message known, to see how they are doing."

He went to Derbe and Lystra also. At Lystra there was a disciple named Timothy whose mother was a Jewish Christian while his father was a Greek,

As they traveled on from one town to another, they passed on to the brothers for their observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders at Jerusalem.

Thus they crossed Phrygia and Galatia. The holy Spirit prevented them from delivering the message in Asia,

There Paul had a vision one night; a Macedonian was standing appealing to him and saying, "Come over to Macedonia and help us."

As soon as he had this vision, we made efforts to get on to Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to tell them the good news.

When she and her household were baptized, she appealed to us, and said, "If you are really convinced that I am a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my house." And she insisted upon our coming.

Once as we were on our way to the praying place a slave-girl met us who had the gift of ventriloquism, and made her masters a great deal of money by her fortune-telling.

This girl would follow Paul and the rest of us, crying out, "These men are slaves of the Most High God, and they are making known to you a way of salvation."

They are advocating practices which it is against the law for us as Romans to adopt or observe."

But about midnight, as Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them,

But Paul said to them, "They had us beaten in public without giving us a trial, and put us in jail, although we are Roman citizens! And now are they going to dismiss us secretly? By no means! Have them come here themselves and take us out!"

Paul went to it as he was accustomed to do, and for three Sabbaths he discussed the Scriptures with them,

explaining them and showing that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. "Jesus," he said, "of whom I am telling you, is the Christ!"

As they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the town magistrates, shouting, "The men who have made trouble all over the world have come here too,

and Jason has taken them in. They all disobey the emperor's decrees, and claim that someone else called Jesus is king."

The men who went with Paul took him all the way to Athens, and came back with instructions for Silas and Timothy to rejoin him as soon as possible.

Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some of them said, "What is this rag-picker trying to make out?" Others said, "He seems to be preaching some foreign deities." This was because he was telling the good news of Jesus and the resurrection.

So they took him and brought him to the council of the Areopagus and said, "May we know just what this new teaching of yours is?

Some of the things you tell us sound strange to us, and we want to know just what they mean."

For as I was going about and looking at the things you worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: 'To an Unknown God.' So it is what you already worship in ignorance that I am now telling you of.

God who created the world and all that is in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples built by human hands,

nor is he waited on by human hands as though he were in need of anything, for he himself gives all men life and breath and everything.

so that they might search for God, and perhaps grope for him and find him, though he is never far from any of us.

For it is through union with him that we live and move and exist, as some of your poets have said, " 'For we are also his offspring.'

So if we are God's children we ought not to imagine that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, wrought by human art and thought.

and as they practiced the same trade, he stayed with them, and they worked together, for they were tent-makers.

But as they contradicted and abused him, he shook his clothes in protest, and said to them, "Your blood be on your own heads! I am not to blame for it! After this I will go to the heathen."

"This fellow," they said, "is trying to induce people to worship God in ways that are against the law."

But as it is only a question of words and titles and your own law, you must look after it yourselves. I refuse to decide such matters."

He bade them goodbye, saying, "I will come back to you again if it is God's will." Then he sailed from Ephesus.

A Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, skilful in the use of the Scriptures.

As he wanted to cross to Greece, the brothers wrote to the disciples there, urging them to welcome him. On his arrival there he was of great service to those who through God's favor had become believers,

"John's baptism was a baptism in token of repentance," said Paul, "and he told the people to believe in him who was to follow him, that is, in Jesus."