After his sufferings he had shown them that he was alive by a number of proofs, revealing himself to them for forty days and discussing the affairs of God's Realm.

Also, as he ate with them, he charged them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for what the Father promised ??"for what you have heard me speak of," said he;

"for John baptized with water, but not many days after this you shall be baptized with the holy Spirit."

But he told them, "It is not for you to know the course and periods of time that the Father has fixed by his own authority.

With the money paid him for his crime he purchased an estate; but swelling up he burst in two, and all his bowels poured out ??19 a fact which became known to all the residents in Jerusalem, so that the estate got the name, in their language, of Akeldamach or The Ground of Blood.

Then they cast lots for them, and the lot fell upon Matthias, who was assigned his position with the eleven apostles.

So when this sound was heard, the multitude gathered in bewilderment, for each heard them speaking in his own language.

And I will display wonders in heaven above and signs on earth below, blood and fire and vapour of smoke:

For David says of him, I saw the Lord before me evermore; lest I be shaken, he is at my right hand.

For it was not David who ascended to heaven; David says, The Lord said to my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand,

till I make your enemies a footstool for your feet'.

"Repent," said Peter, "let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins; then you will receive the gift of the holy Spirit.

For the promise is meant for you and for your children and for all who are far off, for anyone whom the Lord our God may call to himself."

Peter and John were on their way up to the temple for the hour of prayer at three in the afternoon,

When he noticed that Peter and John meant to go into the temple, he asked them for alms.

for Moses said, The Lord our God will raise up a prophet for you from among your brotherhood, as he raised me: you must listen to whatever he may tell you.

It was for you first that God raised up his Servant, and sent him to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways."

There is no salvation by anyone else, nor even a second Name under heaven appointed for us men and our salvation."

But Peter and John replied, "Decide for yourselves whether it is right before God to obey you rather than God.

Then they threatened them still further and let them go; on account of the people they found themselves unable to find any means of punishing them, for everybody was glorifying God over what had happened

There was not a needy person among them, for those who owned land or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sale,

"Ananias," said Peter, "why has Satan filled your heart and made you cheat the holy Spirit by appropriating some of the money paid for the land?

"Tell me," said Peter, "did you only sell the land for such and such a sum?" "Yes," she said, "that was all we sold it for."

With these orders they went into the temple about dawn and proceeded to teach. Meantime the high priest and his allies met, called the Sanhedrin together and the council of seniors belonging to the sons of Israel, and then sent to prison for the men.

At this the commander went off with the attendants and fetched them ??but without using violence, for fear that the people would pelt them with stones.

"We strictly forbade you to teach about this Name, did we not? And here you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine! You want to make us responsible for this man's death!"

But a Pharisee in the Sanhedrin called Gamaliel, a doctor of the Law who was highly respected by all the people, got up and ordered the apostles to be removed for a few moments.

In days gone by Theudas started up, claiming to be a person of importance; a number of men, about four hundred of them, rallied to him, but he was slain, and all his followers were dispersed and wiped out.

The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy of suffering dishonour for the sake of the Name;

not for a single day did they cease to teach and preach the gospel of Jesus the Christ in the temple and at home.

What God said was this: 'His offspring will sojourn in a foreign land, where they will be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years.

rescuing him from all his troubles and allowing him to find favour for his wisdom with Pharaoh king of Egypt, who appointed him viceroy over Egypt and over all his own household.

at their second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Pharaoh was informed of Joseph's lineage.

Then Joseph sent for his father Jacob and all his kinsfolk, amounting to seventy-five souls;

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

As the time approached for the promise God had made to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt,

It was at this period that Moses was born, a divinely beautiful child. For three months he was brought up in his father's house;

then he was exposed, but Pharaoh's daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son.

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

(This was the Moses who told the sons of Israel, 'God will raise up a prophet for you from among your brotherhood, as he raised me.')

They told Aaron, 'Make gods that will march in front of us! As for this Moses who led us out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him!'

No, it was the tent of Moloch and the star-symbol of Rephan your god that you carried, figures that you manufactured for worship. So now I will transport you beyond Babylon!

He found favour with God and asked permission to devise a dwelling for the God of Jacob.

Heaven is my throne, the earth is a footstool for my feet! What house would you build me? saith the Lord. On what spot could I settle?

For unclean spirits came screaming and shrieking out of many who had been possessed, and many paralytics and lame people were healed.

Now for some time previous a man called Simon had been practising magic arts in the town, to the utter astonishment of the Samaritan nation; he made himself out to be a great person,

They attached themselves to him because he had dazzled them with his skill in magic for a considerable time.

Peter said to him, "Death to you and your money, for dreaming you could buy the gift of God!

You come in for no share or lot in this religion. Your heart is all wrong in the sight of God.

So repent of this wickedness of yours, and ask God whether you cannot be forgiven for your heart's purpose.

For I see you are a bitter poison and a pack of evil."

Simon replied, "Beseech the Lord for me! Pray that nothing you have said may befall me!"

So he got up and went on his way. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a high official of Candace the queen of the Ethiopians (he was her chief treasurer), who had come to Jerusalem for worship

By humbling himself he had his doom removed. Who can tell his family? For his life is cut off from the earth.

and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus empowering him to put any man or woman in chains whom he could find belonging to the Way, and bring them to Jerusalem.

His fellow-travellers stood speechless, for they heard the voice but they could not see anyone.

For three days he remained sightless, he neither ate nor drank.

And the Lord said to him, "Go away to the street called 'The Straight Street,' and ask at the house of Judas for a man of Tarsus called Saul. He is praying at this very moment,

I will show him all he has to suffer for the sake of my Name."

Then he took some food and felt strong again. For several days he stayed at Damascus with the disciples.

He lost no time in preaching throughout the synagogues that Jesus was the Son of God ??21 to the amazement of all his hearers, who said, "Is this not the man who in Jerusalem harried those who invoke this Name, the man who came here for the express purpose of carrying them all in chains to the high priests?"

Now, all over Judaea, Galilee, and Samaria, the church enjoyed peace; it was consolidated, inspired by reverence for the Lord and by its invocation of the holy Spirit, and so increased in numbers.

There he found a man called Aeneas who had been bed-ridden for eight years with paralysis.

When the disciples heard that Peter was at Lydda (for Joppa is not far from Lydda), they sent two men to beg him to "Come on to us without delay."

In Joppa Peter stayed for some time, at the house of Simon a tanner.

You must now send some men to Joppa for a certain Simon who is surnamed Peter;

Next day they were still on the road and not far from the town, when Peter went up to the roof of the house about noon to pray.

He became very hungry and longed for some food. But as they were getting the meal ready, a trance came over him.

He saw heaven open and a vessel coming down, like a huge sheet lowered by the four corners to the earth,

Peter was quite at a loss to know the meaning of the vision he had seen; but just then, the messengers of Cornelius, who had made inquiries for the house of Simon, stood at the door

So the Spirit said to Peter, who was pondering over the vision, "There are three men looking for you!

Come, get up and go down, and have no hesitation about accompanying them, for it is I who have sent them."

Then Peter went down to the men, saying, "I am the man you are looking for. What is your reason for coming?"

They said, "Cornelius, a captain, a good man who reverences God and enjoys a good reputation among the whole Jewish nation, was instructed by a holy angel to send for you to his house and to listen to what you had to say."

and on the next day he reached Caesarea. [vs 24b transposed to follow vs 27] (For Cornelius had been expecting him and had called his kinsfolk and intimate friends together.)

To them Peter said, "You know yourselves it is illegal for a Jew to join or accost anyone belonging to another nation; but God has shown me that I must not call any man common or unclean,

and so I have come without any demur when I was sent for. Now I want to know why you sent for me?"

So I sent for you at once, and you have been kind enough to come. Well now, here we are all present before God to listen to what the Lord has commanded you to say."

you know how it spread over the whole of Judaea, starting from Galilee after the baptism preached by John ??38 how God consecrated Jesus of Nazaret with the holy Spirit and power, and how he went about doing good and curing all who were harassed by the devil; for God was with him.

As for what he did in the land of the Jews and of Jerusalem, we can testify to that. They slew him by hanging him on a gibbet,

Now the Jewish believers who had accompanied Peter were amazed that the gift of the holy Spirit had actually been poured out on the Gentiles ??46 for they heard them speak with 'tongues' and magnify God. At this Peter asked,

"Can anyone refuse water for the baptism of these people ??people who have received the holy Spirit just as we ourselves have?"

And he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they begged him to remain for some days.

"I was in the town of Joppa at prayer," he said, "and in a trance I saw a vision ??a vessel coming down like a huge sheet lowered from heaven by the four corners. It came down to me,

But a voice answered me for the second time out of heaven, 'What God has cleansed, you must not regard as common.'

He related to us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, 'Send to Joppa for Simon who is surnamed Peter;

Now those who had been scattered by the trouble which arose over Stephen made their way as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, but they preached the word to none except Jews.

(for he was a good man, full of the holy Spirit and faith). Considerable numbers of people were brought in for the Lord.

So Barnabas went off to Tarsus to look for Saul,

and on finding him he brought him to Antioch, where for a whole year they were guests of the church and taught considerable numbers. It was at Antioch too that the disciples were originally called "Christians."

So the disciples put aside money, as each of them was able to afford it, for a contribution to be sent to the brothers in Judaea.

So Peter was closely guarded in prison, while earnest prayer for him was offered to God by the church.

Then Peter came to his senses and said, "Now I know for certain that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were anticipating."

When he grasped the situation, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John who was surnamed Mark, where a number had met for prayer.

Herod made inquiries for him but could not find him; so, after cross-examining the guards, he ordered them off to death. He then went down from Judaea to Caesarea, where he spent some time.

As there was a bitter feud between him and the inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon, they waited on him unanimously, and after conciliating the royal chamberlain Blastus they made overtures for peace, as their country depended for its food-supply upon the royal territory.

As they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the holy Spirit said, "Come! set me apart Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them."

They covered the whole island as far as Paphos, where they fell in with a Jewish sorcerer and false prophet called Bar-Jesus;

he belonged to the suite of the proconsul Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man who called for Barnabas and Saul and demanded to hear the word of God.

But the sorcerer Elymas (for that is the translation of his name) tried to divert the proconsul from the faith.