And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell to Matthias; and he was added to the eleven apostles.

Then Peter said to her, “How could you two have agreed together to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test? Look! The feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.”

The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you had put to death by hanging Him on a cross [and you are responsible].

After this man, Judas the Galilean rose up, [and led an uprising] during the time of the census, and drew people after him; he was also killed, and all his followers were scattered.

for we have heard him say that this Jesus the Nazarene will tear down this place and will change the traditions and customs which Moses handed down to us.”

Now the high priest asked [Stephen], “Are these charges true?”

“But as the time [for the fulfillment] of the promise which God had made to Abraham was approaching, the [Hebrew] people increased and multiplied in Egypt,

You have no part or share in this matter, because your heart (motive, purpose) is not right before God.

We are [personally] eyewitnesses of everything that He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem [in particular]. They also put Him to death by hanging Him on a cross;

The very night before Herod was to bring him forward, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries were in front of the door guarding the prison.

Now Herod [Agrippa I] was extremely angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon; and their delegates came to him in a united group, and after persuading Blastus, the king’s chamberlain [to support their cause], they asked for peace, because their country was fed by [imports of grain and other goods from] the king’s country.

And when they had finished carrying out everything that was written [in Scripture] about Him, they took Him down from the cross and laid Him in a tomb.

But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard about it, they tore their robes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting,

Arriving there, they gathered the church together and began to report [in great detail] everything that God had done with them and how He had opened to the Gentiles a door of faith [in Jesus as the Messiah and Savior].

The crowd also joined in the attack against them, and the chief magistrates tore their robes off them and ordered that Paul and Silas be beaten with rods.

When the jailer, shaken out of sleep, saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, thinking that the prisoners had escaped.

Therefore God overlooked and disregarded the former ages of ignorance; but now He commands all people everywhere to repent [that is, to change their old way of thinking, to regret their past sins, and to seek God’s purpose for their lives],

Then he moved on from there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, who worshiped God and whose house was next door to the synagogue.

But I do not consider my life as something of value or dear to me, so that I may [with joy] finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify faithfully of the good news of God’s [precious, undeserved] grace [which makes us free of the guilt of sin and grants us eternal life].

even from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse and distorted things, to draw away the disciples after themselves [as their followers].

After we came in sight of Cyprus, leaving it on our left (port side), we sailed on to Syria and put in at Tyre; for there the ship was to unload her cargo.

When we had completed the voyage from Tyre, we landed [twenty miles to the south] at Ptolemais, and after greeting the believers, we stayed with them for one day.

Then Paul, looking intently at the Council (Sanhedrin, Jewish High Court), said, “Kinsmen, I have lived my life before God with a perfectly good conscience until this very day.”

We ran under the shelter of a small island [twenty-five miles south of Crete] called Clauda, and with great difficulty we were able to get the ship’s skiff on the deck and secure it.