until the day when through the holy Spirit he gave the apostles he had chosen their instructions, and was taken up to heaven.

He had shown himself alive to them after he had suffered, in many convincing ways, appearing to them through forty days, and telling them about the Kingdom of God.

And once when he ate with them, he instructed them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised. "You have heard me speak of it," he said,

"Brothers, the prediction of the Scriptures had to come true that the holy Spirit uttered by the lips of David, about Judas, who acted as guide for the men that arrested Jesus??17 for he was one of our number and a share in this ministry of ours fell to his lot."

But others said derisively, "They have had too much new wine!"

But you, by the fixed purpose and intention of God, handed him over to wicked men, and had him crucified.

But as he was a prophet, and knew that God had promised him with an oath that he would put one of his descendants upon his throne,

So he has been exalted to God's right hand, and has received from his Father and poured over us the holy Spirit that had been promised, as you see and hear.

The believers all shared everything they had with one another,

when a man who had been lame from his birth was carried by. He used to be placed every day at what was known as the Beautiful Gate of the Temple, to beg from the people on their way into the Temple,

and recognized him as the man who used to sit and beg at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple, they were perfectly astonished and amazed at what had happened to him.

When Peter saw this, he said to the people. "Men of Israel, why are you so surprised at this? Why do you stare so at us, as though it were some power or some piety of ours that had made him able to walk?

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our forefathers, has done this honor to his servant Jesus, whom you betrayed and disowned before Pilate, when he had decided to let him go.

It was to you that God first sent his servant after he had raised him from the dead, to bless you by making every one of you turn from his wickedness."

greatly disturbed because they were teaching the people and declaring that in the case of Jesus there had been a resurrection from the dead.

But many of those who had heard what they said believed it, and their number grew to be about five thousand.

They had the apostles brought before them and demanded of them, "By what power or authority have men like you done this?"

and seeing the man who had been cured standing beside them, they had nothing to say.

But after further threats they let them go, as they could find no way to punish them, on account of the people, who were all giving honor to God for what had happened,

for the man on whom this wonder of healing had been done was more than forty years old.

After being released, the apostles went back to their friends, and told them what the high priests and members of the council had said to them.

For they have assembled here in this city against your holy servant Jesus, whom you had consecrated??erod and Pontius Pilate, with the heathen and the peoples of Israel,

to carry out what your hand and will had destined should happen.

When they had prayed, the place where they were meeting shook, and they were all filled with the holy Spirit, and fearlessly uttered God's message.

There was but one heart and soul in the multitude who had become believers, and not one of them claimed anything that belonged to him as his own, but they shared everything they had with one another.

Joseph, a Levite, and a native of Cyprus, whom the apostles had named Barnabas, which means Son of Encouragement,

But a man named Ananias, who, with his wife Sapphira, had sold a piece of property,

About three hours later, his wife came in, without having learned what had happened.

and they had the apostles arrested and put in the common jail.

The God of our forefathers raised Jesus to life when you had hung him on a cross and killed him.

They were convinced by him, and they called the apostles in and had them flogged, and warned them not to speak about the name of Jesus, and then let them go.

So they went out from before the council, glad that they had been thought worthy to bear disgrace for the sake of Jesus,

This plan met the approval of the whole body, and they selected Stephen, a man full of faith and of the holy Spirit, with Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas of Antioch, who had been a convert to Judaism.

He gave him no property in it, not a single foot, but he promised to give it to him and his posterity after him permanently, though he had no children at that time.

and they were carried back to Shechem, and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of money from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.

As the time drew near for the fulfilment of the promise God had made to Abraham, the people became more and more numerous in Egypt,

When forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the desert of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning bush.

The Moses whom they had refused, saying to him, 'Who made you our ruler and judge?' God sent both to rule and to deliver them, with the help of the angel who had appeared to him in the bush.

They even made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice to their idol, and held a celebration over what their own hands had made.

You offered me the tent of Moloch and the star of your god Rompha, The images you had made to worship! So I will deport you beyond Babylon.'

In the desert our forefathers had the Tent of the Testimony built like the model Moses had seen, just as he who spoke to him told him to make it.

Which of the prophets did your forefathers not persecute? They killed the men who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and killed??53 you who had the Law given to you by angels, and did not obey it!"

When the people heard Philip and saw the signs that he showed they were all interested in what he had to say,

for with loud cries foul spirits came out of many who had been possessed by them, and many paralytics and lame people were cured.

There was a man named Simon in the town, who had been amazing the Samaritan people by practicing magic there, and who made great pretensions.

They made much of him because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic.

When the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted God's message, they sent Peter and John there.

for it had not yet come upon any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

After they had given their testimony and delivered the Lord's message, they went back to Jerusalem, telling the good news in many Samaritan villages on the way.

So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a member of the court of Candace, queen of Ethiopia, her chief treasurer, who had come up to Jerusalem to worship,

When he got up from the ground and opened his eyes he could see nothing. They had to take him by the hand and lead him into Damascus,

He has had a vision and seen a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him, to restore his sight."

After some time had passed, the Jews made a plot to kill him,

But Barnabas got hold of him and introduced him to the apostles, and he told them how on his journey he had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken to him, and how boldly he had spoken for the cause of Jesus at Damascus.

There he found a man named Aeneas, a paralytic who had been bedridden for eight years.

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.

Just at that time it happened that she had been taken ill and had died, and they had washed her body and laid her out in a room upstairs.

Peter went with them at once. When he arrived, they took him up to the room and all the widows stood around him crying and showing him the shirts and coats that Dorcas had made when she was still with them.

One afternoon, about three o'clock, he had a vision, and distinctly saw an angel of God come into his room and say to him, "Cornelius!"

When the angel who had spoken to him was gone, Cornelius called two of his servants, and a devout soldier who was one of his personal attendants,

While Peter was still wondering what the vision he had had could mean, the men whom Cornelius had sent had asked the way to Simon's house and reached the door,

and the day after, he reached Caesarea. Cornelius had invited in his relatives and his intimate friends and was waiting for them.

So they went in talking together, and Peter found that many people had gathered,

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.

Before Peter had finished saying these words, the holy Spirit fell on all who were listening to his message.

The Jewish believers who had come with Peter were amazed because the gift of the holy Spirit had been showered upon the heathen too,

The apostles and brothers all over Judea heard that the heathen had also accepted God's message,

"I was praying in the town of Joppa, and while in a trance I had a vision. Something like a great sheet came down out of the sky, lowered by its four corners. It came right down to me,

Just at that moment three men, who had been sent from Caesarea to find me, reached the house where we were staying,

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,

So if God had given them the same gift that we received when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I, to be able to interfere with God?"

The fugitives from the persecution that had broken out over Stephen went all the way to Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, but they told the message to none but Jews.

When he reached there and saw the favor God had shown them, he was delighted, and encouraged them all to be resolute and steadfast in their devotion to the Lord,

He had John's brother, James, beheaded,

He had him seized and put in jail, with four squads of soldiers to guard him, meaning after the Passover to bring him out before the people.

He motioned to them to be quiet, and then related to them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. "Tell all this to James and the brothers," he said. Then he left them and went somewhere else.

Herod had inquiries made for him, and when he could not find him, he examined the guards and ordered them to be put to death. Then he left Judea for Caesarea, and stayed there.

When Barnabas and Saul had performed their mission to Jerusalem, they went back, taking John who was called Mark with them.

There were at Antioch in the church there a number of prophets and teachers??arnabas, Symeon who was called Niger, Lucius the Cyrenian, Manaen, who had been brought up with Herod the governor, and Saul.

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

Then the governor, seeing what had happened, believed, and was thunderstruck at the Lord's teaching.

Then after he had taken care of them for forty years in the desert,

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

When they had carried out everything that had been said about him in the Scriptures, they took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb.

and for many days he appeared to those who had come up to Jerusalem with him from Galilee, and they are now witnesses for him to the people.

and after the congregation had broken up, many of the Jews and the devout converts to Judaism went away with Paul and Barnabas, and they talked with them, and urged them to rely on the favor of God.

Then Paul and Barnabas spoke out plainly, and said, "God's message had to be told to you first, but since you thrust it off and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, we now turn to the heathen.

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!"

They appointed elders for them in each church, and with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.

and from there they sailed back to Antioch, where they had first been commended to God's favor for the work which they had now finished.

When they arrived there, they called the church together, and reported how God had worked with them, and how he had opened the way to faith for the heathen.

When they reached Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church, the apostles, and the elders, and they reported how God had worked with them.

But some members of the Pharisees' party who had become believers got up and said that such converts ought to be circumcised and told to obey the Law of Moses.

The apostles and elders had a meeting to look into this matter.

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

This quieted the whole meeting, and they listened while Barnabas and Paul told of the signs and wonders which God had done among the heathen through them.

For Moses for generations past has had his preachers in every town, and has been read aloud in the synagogues every Sabbath."

After they had stayed some time, the brothers let them go, with a greeting to those who had sent them.