After he had said this, while they were watching, he was lifted up and a cloud hid him from their sight.

and said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking up into the sky? This same Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come back in the same way you saw him go into heaven."

In those days Peter stood up among the believers (a gathering of about one hundred and twenty people) and said,

Completely baffled, they said, "Aren't all these who are speaking Galileans?

For David did not ascend into heaven, but he himself says, 'The Lord said to my lord, "Sit at my right hand

Now when they heard this, they were acutely distressed and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "What should we do, brothers?"

Peter said to them, "Repent, and each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Peter looked directly at him (as did John) and said, "Look at us!"

But Peter said, "I have no silver or gold, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, stand up and walk!"

Moses said, 'The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. You must obey him in everything he tells you.

When they were released, Peter and John went to their fellow believers and reported everything the high priests and the elders had said to them.

When they heard this, they raised their voices to God with one mind and said, "Master of all, you who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them,

who said by the Holy Spirit through your servant David our forefather, 'Why do the nations rage, and the peoples plot foolish things?

The group of those who believed were of one heart and mind, and no one said that any of his possessions was his own, but everything was held in common.

But Peter said, "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back for yourself part of the proceeds from the sale of the land?

Peter said to her, "Tell me, were the two of you paid this amount for the land?" Sapphira said, "Yes, that much."

But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the prison, led them out, and said,

Then he said to the council, "Men of Israel, pay close attention to what you are about to do to these men.

So the twelve called the whole group of the disciples together and said, "It is not right for us to neglect the word of God to wait on tables.

They brought forward false witnesses who said, "This man does not stop saying things against this holy place and the law.

Then the high priest said, "Are these things true?"

and said to him, 'Go out from your country and from your relatives, and come to the land I will show you.'

But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves,' said God, 'and after these things they will come out of there and worship me in this place.'

When the man said this, Moses fled and became a foreigner in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.

But the Lord said to him, 'Take the sandals off your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.

This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, 'God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers.'

"Look!" he said. "I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!"

Then he fell to his knees and cried out with a loud voice, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them!" When he had said this, he died.

The crowds were paying attention with one mind to what Philip said, as they heard and saw the miraculous signs he was performing.

But Peter said to him, "May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could acquire God's gift with money!

But Simon replied, "You pray to the Lord for me so that nothing of what you have said may happen to me."

Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Get up and go south on the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." (This is a desert road.)

Then the Spirit said to Philip, "Go over and join this chariot."

Then the eunuch said to Philip, "Please tell me, who is the prophet saying this about -- himself or someone else?"

Now as they were going along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, "Look, there is water! What is to stop me from being baptized?"

So he said, "Who are you, Lord?" He replied, "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting!

Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, "Ananias," and he replied, "Here I am, Lord."

But the Lord said to him, "Go, because this man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before Gentiles and kings and the people of Israel.

So Ananias departed and entered the house, placed his hands on Saul and said, "Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you came here, has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit."

Peter said to him, "Aeneas, Jesus the Christ heals you. Get up and make your own bed!" And immediately he got up.

But Peter sent them all outside, knelt down, and prayed. Turning to the body, he said, "Tabitha, get up." Then she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up.

About three o'clock one afternoon he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God who came in and said to him, "Cornelius."

Staring at him and becoming greatly afraid, Cornelius replied, "What is it, Lord?" The angel said to him, "Your prayers and your acts of charity have gone up as a memorial before God.

Then a voice said to him, "Get up, Peter; slaughter and eat!"

But Peter said, "Certainly not, Lord, for I have never eaten anything defiled and ritually unclean!"

While Peter was still thinking seriously about the vision, the Spirit said to him, "Look! Three men are looking for you.

So Peter went down to the men and said, "Here I am, the person you're looking for. Why have you come?"

They said, "Cornelius the centurion, a righteous and God-fearing man, well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to summon you to his house and to hear a message from you."

He said to them, "You know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile, yet God has shown me that I should call no person defiled or ritually unclean.

and said, 'Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your acts of charity have been remembered before God.

for they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God. Then Peter said,

But I said, 'Certainly not, Lord, for nothing defiled or ritually unclean has ever entered my mouth!'

The angel said to him, "Fasten your belt and put on your sandals." Peter did so. Then the angel said to him, "Put on your cloak and follow me."

When Peter came to himself, he said, "Now I know for certain that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from everything the Jewish people were expecting to happen."

But they said to her, "You've lost your mind!" But she kept insisting that it was Peter, and they kept saying, "It is his angel!"

He motioned to them with his hand to be quiet and then related how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. He said, "Tell James and the brothers these things," and then he left and went to another place.

While they were serving the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them."

and said, "You who are full of all deceit and all wrongdoing, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness -- will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord?

So Paul stood up, gestured with his hand and said, "Men of Israel, and you Gentiles who fear God, listen:

But while John was completing his mission, he said repeatedly, 'What do you think I am? I am not he. But look, one is coming after me. I am not worthy to untie the sandals on his feet!'

he said with a loud voice, "Stand upright on your feet." And the man leaped up and began walking.

But some from the religious party of the Pharisees who had believed stood up and said, "It is necessary to circumcise the Gentiles and to order them to observe the law of Moses."

After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, "Brothers, you know that some time ago God chose me to preach to the Gentiles so they would hear the message of the gospel and believe.

Since we have heard that some have gone out from among us with no orders from us and have confused you, upsetting your minds by what they said,

After some days Paul said to Barnabas, "Let's return and visit the brothers in every town where we proclaimed the word of the Lord to see how they are doing."

She continued to do this for many days. But Paul became greatly annoyed, and turned and said to the spirit, "I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her!" And it came out of her at once.

When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, "These men are throwing our city into confusion. They are Jews

But Paul said to the police officers, "They had us beaten in public without a proper trial -- even though we are Roman citizens -- and they threw us in prison. And now they want to send us away secretly? Absolutely not! They themselves must come and escort us out!"

Also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him, and some were asking, "What does this foolish babbler want to say?" Others said, "He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods." (They said this because he was proclaiming the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.)

So Paul stood before the Areopagus and said, "Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious in all respects.

For in him we live and move about and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we too are his offspring.'

Now when they heard about the resurrection from the dead, some began to scoff, but others said, "We will hear you again about this."

When they opposed him and reviled him, he protested by shaking out his clothes and said to them, "Your blood be on your own heads! I am guiltless! From now on I will go to the Gentiles!"

The Lord said to Paul by a vision in the night, "Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent,

But just as Paul was about to speak, Gallio said to the Jews, "If it were a matter of some crime or serious piece of villainy, I would have been justified in accepting the complaint of you Jews,

Paul, after staying many more days in Corinth, said farewell to the brothers and sailed away to Syria accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila. He had his hair cut off at Cenchrea because he had made a vow.

but said farewell to them and added, "I will come back to you again if God wills." Then he set sail from Ephesus,

and said to them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" They replied, "No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit."

So Paul said, "Into what then were you baptized?" "Into John's baptism," they replied.

Paul said, "John baptized with a baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus."

Now after all these things had taken place, Paul resolved to go to Jerusalem, passing through Macedonia and Achaia. He said, "After I have been there, I must also see Rome."

He gathered these together, along with the workmen in similar trades, and said, "Men, you know that our prosperity comes from this business.

After the city secretary quieted the crowd, he said, "Men of Ephesus, what person is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is the keeper of the temple of the great Artemis and of her image that fell from heaven?

After he had said this, he dismissed the assembly.

But Paul went down, threw himself on the young man, put his arms around him, and said, "Do not be distressed, for he is still alive!"

When they arrived, he said to them, "You yourselves know how I lived the whole time I was with you, from the first day I set foot in the province of Asia,

By all these things, I have shown you that by working in this way we must help the weak, and remember the words of the Lord Jesus that he himself said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'"

When he had said these things, he knelt down with them all and prayed.

especially saddened by what he had said, that they were not going to see him again. Then they accompanied him to the ship.

we said farewell to one another. Then we went aboard the ship, and they returned to their own homes.

He came to us, took Paul's belt, tied his own hands and feet with it, and said, "The Holy Spirit says this: 'This is the way the Jews in Jerusalem will tie up the man whose belt this is, and will hand him over to the Gentiles.'"

Because he could not be persuaded, we said no more except, "The Lord's will be done."

When they heard this, they praised God. Then they said to him, "You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are who have believed, and they are all ardent observers of the law.

As Paul was about to be brought into the barracks, he said to the commanding officer, "May I say something to you?" The officer replied, "Do you know Greek?

(When they heard that he was addressing them in Aramaic, they became even quieter.) Then Paul said,

I answered, 'Who are you, Lord?' He said to me, 'I am Jesus the Nazarene, whom you are persecuting.'

So I asked, 'What should I do, Lord?' The Lord said to me, 'Get up and go to Damascus; there you will be told about everything that you have been designated to do.'

came to me and stood beside me and said to me, 'Brother Saul, regain your sight!' And at that very moment I looked up and saw him.

Then he said, 'The God of our ancestors has already chosen you to know his will, to see the Righteous One, and to hear a command from his mouth,

Then he said to me, 'Go, because I will send you far away to the Gentiles.'"