In my first volume, Theophilus, I dealt with all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning

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

It was at that time that Peter got up among the brothers??here were about a hundred and twenty persons present??nd 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."

This fact was well known to all the residents of Jerusalem, so that the piece of land came to be called in their language Akeldamach, the bloody field.)

"So one of the men who has been associated with us all the time that the Lord Jesus moved about among us,

Then how is it that each of us hears his own native tongue?

" 'It will come about in the last days, God says, That I will pour out my Spirit upon all mankind; Your sons and daughters will become prophets, Your young men will have visions, And your old men will have dreams.

"Men of Israel, listen to what I say. Jesus of Nazareth, as you know, was a man whom God commended to you by the wonders, portents, and signs that God did right among you through him.

For David says of him, 'I constantly regarded the Lord before me, For he is at my right hand, so that I may not be displaced.

"Brothers, one may say to you confidently of the patriarch David that he died and was buried, and his grave is here among us to this very day.

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.

"Therefore the whole nation of Israel must understand that God has declared this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ."

He said much more besides in giving his testimony, and urged them to save themselves from that crooked age.

So they welcomed his message and were baptized, and about three thousand people joined them that day.

He looked at them, supposing that they were going to give him something.

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?

It is by his power and through faith in him that this man whom you see and recognize has been made strong again, and it is faith inspired by him that has given him the perfect health you all see.

Yet I know, brothers, that you did not know what you were doing, any more than your leaders did;

it was in this way that God fulfilled what he by all the prophets foretold that his Christ must suffer.

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

Anyone that will not listen to that prophet will be annihilated from among the people.'

You are the descendants of the prophets and the heirs of the agreement that God made with your forefathers when he said to Abraham, 'Through your posterity all the families of the earth will be blessed.'

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.

if it is for a benefit conferred upon a helpless man, and as to how he was cured, that we are called to account here today,

you and the people of Israel must all know that it is through the power of Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that he stands here before you well.

He is the stone that you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.

They were amazed to see how outspoken Peter and John were, and to find that they were uneducated men with no advantages. They recognized them as companions of Jesus,

They said, "What are we to do with these men? For it is plain to everyone in Jerusalem that an extraordinary wonder has been done by them. We cannot deny that.

When they heard it, with one impulse they all raised their voices to God and said, "Master, it was you who made heaven, earth, and sea, and everything that is in them,

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.

sold a piece of land that belonged to him, and brought the proceeds and put them at the disposal of the apostles.

And Peter said, "Ananias, why has Satan taken such possession of your heart that you should lie to the holy Spirit, by appropriating part of the price of your land?

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

so that people would carry their sick out into the streets, and lay them down on beds and mats, to have at least Peter's shadow fall on some of them as he went by.

Someone came over and reported to them, "The men that you put in jail are standing right here in the Temple, teaching the people!"

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

In those days, as the number of the disciples was increasing, complaints were made by the Greek-speaking Jews against the native Jews that their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food.

So the Twelve called in the whole body of disciples and said to them, "It is not desirable that we should give up preaching the word of God to keep accounts.

But members of the synagogue known as that of the Libyans, Cyreneans, and Alexandrians, and men from Cilicia and Asia undertook to debate with Stephen,

for we have heard him say that Jesus of Nazareth will tear this place down and change the customs that have been handed down to us by Moses."

Everyone who sat in the council fixed his eyes on him, and they saw that his face was like that of an angel.

and he said to him, 'Leave your country and your relatives and come to the country that I will show you.'

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 I will sentence the nation that has enslaved them,' God said, 'and afterward they will leave that country and worship me on this spot.'

But Jacob heard that there was food in Egypt, and he sent our forefathers on their first visit there.

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.

He took advantage of our people and oppressed our forefathers, making them abandon their infant children, so that they should not live.

It was at this time that Moses was born. He was a wonderfully beautiful child, and for three months he was taken care of in his father's house.

He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was using him as the means of delivering them, but they did not.

Do you mean to kill me as you did that Egyptian yesterday?'

It was he who with the congregation in the desert went between the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai and our forefathers, and received and communicated to you utterances that still live.

So God turned his back on them and left them to worship the starry host, just as the Book of the Prophets says, " 'Was it victims and sacrifices that you offered to me, O house of Israel, Those forty years in the desert?

This tent was handed down to our forefathers and they brought it here with them when under Joshua they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before them, and it existed until the time of David.

Was it not my hand that made it all?'

When they heard that, they were enraged and ground their teeth at him.

And Saul entirely approved of his being put to death. A great persecution of the church in Jerusalem broke out that day, and they were all scattered over Judea and Samaria except the apostles.

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

So there was great rejoicing in that city.

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

When they came, they prayed that the Samaritans might receive the holy Spirit,

But when Simon saw that the holy Spirit was imparted through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money,

For I see that you are a bitter poison and a bundle of iniquity!"

Simon answered, "You must pray to the Lord for me, that none of the things you have said may happen to me!"

But an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Get up and go south, by the road that runs from Jerusalem to Gaza." (The town is now deserted.)

Then the Spirit said to Philip, "Go up and stay by that car."

This was the passage of Scripture that he was reading: "Like a sheep he was led away to be slaughtered, And just as a lamb is dumb before its shearer, He does not open his mouth.

and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any men or women there who belonged to the Way, he might bring them in chains to Jerusalem.

Ananias set out and went to the house, and there he laid his hands upon Saul, and said to him, "Saul, my brother, I have been sent by the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your journey, so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the holy Spirit."

and began at once to declare in the synagogues that Jesus was the Son of God.

Everyone was astonished, and said, "Is not he the man who made such havoc of the people in Jerusalem who call upon that name, and who came here especially for the purpose of arresting such persons and taking them before the high priests?"

But Saul grew more and more powerful, and bewildered the Jews who lived in Damascus by his proofs that Jesus was the Christ.

When he reached Jerusalem he tried to join the disciples, and they were all afraid of him, for they could not believe that he was really a disciple.

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.

After that, he associated with them freely in Jerusalem,

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.

As Joppa was near Lydda, the disciples heard that Peter was there, and they sent two men to him, urging him to come over without delay.

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.

So it came about that Peter stayed for some time in Joppa, at the house of a tanner named Simon.

But Peter said, "Never, sir! For I have never eaten anything that was not ceremonially cleansed."

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

and he said to them, "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 anyone vulgar or unclean.

That was why, when I was sent for, I came without any hesitation. And now I want to ask why you sent for me."

So I sent for you immediately, and you have very kindly come. Now we are all here in God's presence, to hear everything that the Lord has instructed you to say."

Then Peter began and said, "Now I really understand that God shows no partiality,

You know the story that has gone all over Judea, starting from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed,

We are witnesses of everything that he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. Yet they put him upon a cross and killed him.

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.

He also directed us to announce to the people and bear solemn testimony that he is the one whom God has appointed to be the judge of the living and the dead.

It is of him that all the prophets bear witness that everyone that believes in him will have his sins forgiven in his name."

And he directed that they should be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to stay on there a few days.

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

But I said, 'Never, sir! For nothing that was not ceremonially cleansed has ever passed my lips.'

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

and he will tell you things that will save you and your whole household.'

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.