And once while He was eating with them, He charged them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for what the Father had promised. "You have heard me speak of it," He said,

and said to them, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into heaven? This very Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come back in just the way you have seen Him go up into heaven."

At that time Peter got up among the brothers (there were about a hundred and twenty present) and said,

For David did not go up to heaven, but he himself says: 'The Lord said to my Lord, "Sit at my right hand,

When they heard this, they were stabbed to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?"

Peter said to them, "You must repent -- and, as an expression of it, let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ -- that you may have your sins forgiven; and then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit,

Peter looked him straight in the eye, and so did John, and said, "Look at us."

But Peter said, "No silver or gold have I, but what I do have I will give you. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth start walking."

When Peter saw this, he said to the people, "Fellow Israelites, why are you so surprised at this? Why do you keep staring at us, as though we had by our own power or piety made this man walk?

Moses, indeed, said: 'The Lord God will raise up a prophet for you from among your brothers, as He did me. You must attentively listen to everything that He tells you.

And you are the descendants of the prophets and the heirs of the sacred compact which God made with your forefathers, when He said to Abraham: 'All the families of the earth are to be blessed through your posterity.'

Then Peter, because he was filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, "Leaders and elders of the people,

When they were turned loose, the apostles went back to their companions and told them what the high priests and elders had said to them.

When they heard this, with one united prayer to God they said: "O Lord, you are the Maker of heaven, earth, and sea, and everything that is in them, and the One

And Peter said, "Ananias, why has Satan so completely possessed your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and kept back for yourselves a part of the money received for the land?

Peter said to her, "Tell me, did you sell the land for such and such a sum?" She answered, "Yes, that is it."

Peter said to her, "How could both of you agree in such a way to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door; they will carry you out, too."

But in the night the angel of the Lord threw open the jail doors and let them out, and said to them,

then he said to them: "Fellow Israelites, take care as to what you are about to do to these men.

So the Twelve called together the whole body of the disciples, and said, "It is not desirable that we should leave off preaching the word of God to wait on tables.

Then they put up false witnesses who said, "This man never stops saying things against this holy place and against the law,

and said to him, 'Leave your country and your kinsmen and come to Whatever country I may show you.'

When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight, and when he went up to look at it, the voice of the Lord said to him,

Then the Lord said to him, 'Take your shoes off your feet, for the place where you are standing is sacred ground.

It was this Moses who said to the descendants of Israel, 'God will raise up a prophet for you from among you, just as He did me.'

and they said to Aaron, 'Make us gods to march in front of us, for as for this Moses, who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him!'

So he said, "Look! I see heaven open, and the Son of Man standing at God's right hand."

As the crowds continued to listen to his message and continued to see his wonder-works which he was performing, with one mind they became interested in what was said by Philip.

and said, "Give me this power too, that when I lay my hands on anyone he may receive the Holy Spirit."

But Peter said to him, "Your money go to perdition with you for even dreaming you could buy the gift of God with money!

So Simon answered, "Both of you beg the Lord for me that none of the things you have said may befall me!"

Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Get up and go south by the road that leads from Jerusalem to Gaza; this is the desert road."

So the Spirit said to Philip, "Go up and join him in his chariot."

As they continued down the road, they came to some water, and the official said, "Look! here is some water! What is there to keep me from being baptized?"

He asked, "Who are you, sir?" And He said, "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.

Now there was in Damascus a disciple named Ananias, and the Lord said to him in a vision, "Ananias!" And he answered, "Yes, Lord, I am here."

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

But the Lord said to him, "Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name to the heathen and their kings, and to the descendants of Israel.

So Ananias left and went to that house, and there he laid his hands upon Saul, and said, "Saul, my. brother, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road on which you were coming here, has sent me that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit."

And all who heard him were astounded and said, "Is not this the man who harassed those who called upon this name in Jerusalem, and has come here expressly for the purpose of putting them in chains and taking them back to the high priests?"

So Peter said to him, "Aeneas, Jesus Christ now cures you! Get up and make your bed!" And at once he got up.

Then Peter put them all out of the room, knelt down and prayed, and, turning to the body, said, "Tabitha, get up!" Then she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up.

But Peter said, "Never by any means, sir, for I have never eaten anything common, or not ceremonially cleansed."

While Peter was meditating on the vision, the Spirit said to him, "There are two men looking for you.

So Peter went down and said to the men, "I am the man you are looking for. What is the purpose of your coming?"

and he said to him, "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 any man vulgar or ceremonially unclean;

Then Cornelius said, "Four days ago, about this hour, three o'clock in the afternoon, I was praying in my house, and all at once a man in dazzling clothing stood before me,

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

Then Peter opened his mouth and said, "Now I really see that God shows no partiality,

Then Peter explained the whole matter to them from beginning to end. He said,

And suddenly an angel of the Lord stood by him, and a light shone in his cell, and by striking Peter on the side the angel woke him, and said, "Get up quickly!" At once the chains fell off his hands.

Then the angel said to him, "Tighten your belt and put on your shoes? He did so. Then the angel said to him, "Put on your coat and follow me!"

Then Peter came to himself and said, "Now I really know that the Lord has sent His angel and rescued me from the power of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting to do to me."

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

While they were worshiping 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 expert in every form of deception and sleight-of-hand, 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!

After the reading of the law and the prophets, the leaders of the synagogue worship sent to them and said, "Brothers, if you have any message of encouragement for the people, you may speak."

Then Paul got up and motioned with his hand and said: "Fellow Israelites, and you who reverence God, listen!

As John was closing his career, he said, 'What do you take me to be? I am not the Christ; no, but He is coming after me, and I am not fit to untie the shoes on His feet.'

So take care that what is said in the prophets does not come upon you:

But some members of the Pharisaic party, who had become believers, arose and said that such converts must be circumcised and told to keep the law of Moses.

After a lengthy discussion Peter got up and said to them, "Brothers, you know that in the early days God chose among you that through me the heathen should hear the message of the good news and believe it.

Some days after this Paul said to Barnabas, "Let us go back and visit the brothers in every town where we preached the Lord's message, to see how they are."

She kept this up for a number of days. Because Paul was so much annoyed by her, he turned and said to the spirit in her, "In the name of Jesus Christ I order you to come out of her." And that very moment it came out.

and brought them to the chiefs of the police court. They said, "These men are Jews; they continue to make great disturbance in our town

After leading them out of the jail, he said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"

But Paul said to them, "They beat us in public and that without a trial, and put us in jail although we are Roman citizens! Let them come here themselves and take us out!"

explaining them and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead, and said, "This very Jesus whom I proclaim to you is the Christ."

Some of the Epicurean and the Stoic philosophers began to debate with him; and some said, "What is this scraps-of-truth-picker trying to say?" Others said, "He seems to be a preacher of foreign deities." They said so because he was telling the good news of Jesus and the resurrection.

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

So Paul stood up in the center of the auditorium and said: "Men of Athens, at every turn I make I see that you are very religious.

For it is through union with Him that we live and move and exist, as some of your own poets have said, "'For we are His offspring too.'

But when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some sneered, but others said, "We will hear you again on this subject."

But as they opposed and abused him, he shook out his clothes in protest and said to them, "Your blood be upon your own heads! I am not to blame for it myself. Hereafter I am going to the heathen."

One night in a vision the Lord said to Paul, "Stop being afraid, go on speaking, never give up;

and said, "This fellow is inducing people to worship God in ways that violate our laws."

As Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, "If it were some misdemeanor or underhanded rascality, O Jews, I would in reason listen to you;

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

He called together his workmen, and others engaged in similar trades, and said to them: "Men, you well know that our prosperity depends on this business of ours,

At last the city recorder quieted the mob and said: "Men of Ephesus, who in the world does not know that the city of Ephesus is the guardian of the temple of the great Artemis and of the image that fell down from heaven?

But Paul went down and fell on him and embraced him, and said, "Stop being alarmed, his life is still in him."

When they arrived, he said to them: "You know how I lived among you all the time from the day I first set foot in the province of Asia, and how I continued

In everything I showed you that by working hard like this we must help those who are weak, and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He said, 'It makes one happier to give than to get.'"

He came to see us and took Paul's belt and with it bound his own hands and feet, and said, "This is what the Holy Spirit says, 'The Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt like this, and then will turn him over to the heathen.'"

So, since he would not yield to our appeal, we stopped begging him, and said, "The Lord's will be done!"

They gave the glory to God, when they heard it, and said to him, "You see, brother, how many thousand believers there are among the Jews, all of them zealous champions of the law.

As he was about to be taken into the barracks, Paul said to the colonel, "May I say something to you?" The colonel asked, "Do you know Greek?

I answered, 'Who are you, Sir?' He said to me, 'I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting.'

came to see me, and standing by my side said to me, 'Saul, my brother, recover your sight!' Then instantly I did recover it and looked at him,

and he said, 'The God of our forefathers has appointed you to learn His will and to see the Righteous One and to hear Him speak,

So I said, 'Lord, they know for themselves that from one synagogue to another I used to imprison and flog those who believed in you,

Then He said to me, 'Go, because I am to send you out and far away among the heathen.'"

They listened to him until he said this, and then all at once they shouted, "Away with such a fellow from the earth! He is certainly not fit to live!"

Then the colonel said, "I paid a large sum for this citizenship of mine." Paul said, "But I was born a citizen."

Paul fixed his eyes upon the council and said, "Brothers, with a clear conscience I have done my duty to God up to this very day."

Then Paul said to him, "You white-washed wall, God will strike you! Do you sit as a judge to try me in accordance with the law and yet in violation of the law you order them to strike me?"

The people standing near him said, "Do you mean to insult God's high priest?"

When he said that, an angry dispute arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the crowded court was divided.

But that same night the Lord stood by Paul's side and said, "Courage! For just as you have testified for me in Jerusalem, you must testify for me in Rome, too."

They went to the high priests and elders and said to them, "We have taken a solemn oath not to taste a morsel till we have killed Paul.