delivered up through God's settled purpose and foreknowledge--you by the hands of Gentiles have nailed to a cross and have put to death.

But Peter and John replied, "Judge whether it is right in God's sight to listen to you instead of listening to God.

When they had prayed, the place in which they were assembled shook, and they were, one and all, filled with the Holy Spirit, and proceeded to tell God's Message with boldness.

So the Twelve called together the general body of the disciples and said, "It does not seem fitting that we Apostles should neglect the delivery of God's Message and minister at tables.

Meanwhile God's Message continued to spread, and the number of the disciples in Jerusalem very greatly increased, and very many priests obeyed the faith.

But, full of the Holy Spirit and looking up to Heaven, Stephen saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at God's right hand.

"I can see Heaven wide open," he said, "and the Son of Man standing at God's right hand."

Those, however, who were scattered abroad went from place to place spreading the Good News of God's Message;

When the Apostles in Jerusalem heard that the Samaritans had accepted God's Message, they sent Peter and John to visit them.

"Perish your money and yourself," replied Peter, "because you have imagined that you can obtain God's free gift with money!

No part or lot have you in this matter, for your heart is not right in God's sight.

Now Peter, as he went to town after town, came down also to God's people at Lud.

Then, giving her his hand, he raised her to her feet and, calling to him God's people and the widows, he gave her back to them alive.

"Immediately, therefore, I sent to you, and I thank you heartily for having come. That is why all of us are now assembled here in God's presence, to listen to what the Lord has commanded you to say."

Now the Apostles, and the brethren in various parts of Judaea, heard that the Gentiles also had received God's Message;

But God's Message prospered, and converts were multiplied.

Having reached Salamis, they began to announce God's Message in the synagogues of the Jews. And they had John as their assistant.

who was a friend of the Proconsul Sergius Paulus. The Proconsul was a man of keen intelligence. He sent for Barnabas and Saul, and asked to be told God's Message.

For David, after having been useful to his own generation in accordance with God's purpose, did fall asleep, was gathered to his forefathers, and did undergo decay.

Then, throwing off all reserve, Paul and Barnabas said, "We were bound to proclaim God's Message to you first. But since you spurn it and judge yourselves to be unworthy of the Life of the Ages--well, we turn to the Gentiles.

As soon, however, as the Jews of Thessalonica learnt that God's Message had been proclaimed by Paul at Beroea, they came there also, and incited the mob to a riot.

Since then we are God's offspring, we ought not to imagine that His nature resembles gold or silver or marble, or anything sculptured by the art and inventive faculty of man.

He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, and Priscilla and Aquila, after hearing him, took him home and explained God's way to him more accurately.

But even the sacrifice of my life I count as nothing, if only I may perfect my earthly course, and be faithful to the duty which the Lord Jesus has entrusted to me of proclaiming, as of supreme importance, the Good News of God's grace.

For I have not shrunk from declaring to you God's whole truth.

"Do you rail at God's High Priest?" cried the men who stood by him.

And that was how I acted in Jerusalem. Armed with authority received from the High Priests I shut up many of God's people in various prisons, and when they were about to be put to death I gave my vote against them.

"Be fully assured, therefore, that this salvation--God's salvation--has now been sent to the Gentiles, and that they, at any rate, will give heed."