To the same apostles also, after his suffering, he presented himself alive with many convincing proofs. He was seen by them over a forty-day period and spoke about matters concerning the kingdom of God.

both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs -- we hear them speaking in our own languages about the great deeds God has done!"

And in the last days it will be,' God says, 'that I will pour out my Spirit on all people, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, and your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams.

"Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man clearly attested to you by God with powerful deeds, wonders, and miraculous signs that God performed among you through him, just as you yourselves know --

this man, who was handed over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you executed by nailing him to a cross at the hands of Gentiles.

But God raised him up, having released him from the pains of death, because it was not possible for him to be held in its power.

So then, because he was a prophet and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath to seat one of his descendants on his throne,

This Jesus God raised up, and we are all witnesses of it.

So then, exalted to the right hand of God, and having received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father, he has poured out what you both see and hear.

Therefore let all the house of Israel know beyond a doubt that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ."

For the promise is for you and your children, and for all who are far away, as many as the Lord our God will call to himself."

praising God and having the good will of all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number every day those who were being saved.

And a man lame from birth was being carried up, who was placed at the temple gate called "the Beautiful Gate" every day so he could beg for money from those going into the temple courts.

He jumped up, stood and began walking around, and he entered the temple courts with them, walking and leaping and praising God.

All the people saw him walking and praising God,

and they recognized him as the man who used to sit and ask for donations at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, and they were filled with astonishment and amazement at what had happened to him.

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our forefathers, has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate after he had decided to release him.

You killed the Originator of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this fact we are witnesses!

But the things God foretold long ago through all the prophets -- that his Christ would suffer -- he has fulfilled in this way.

This one heaven must receive until the time all things are restored, which God declared from times long ago through his holy prophets.

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.

You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your ancestors, saying to Abraham, 'And in your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed.'

God raised up his servant and sent him first to you, to bless you by turning each one of you from your iniquities."

if we are being examined today for a good deed done to a sick man -- by what means this man was healed --

let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, this man stands before you healthy.

But Peter and John replied, "Whether it is right before God to obey you rather than God, you decide,

After threatening them further, they released them, for they could not find how to punish them on account of the people, because they were all praising God for what had happened.

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,

When they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God courageously.

Before it was sold, did it not belong to you? And when it was sold, was the money not at your disposal? How have you thought up this deed in your heart? You have not lied to people but to God!"

But Peter and the apostles replied, "We must obey God rather than people.

The God of our forefathers raised up Jesus, whom you seized and killed by hanging him on a tree.

God exalted him to his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

And we are witnesses of these events, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him."

but if it is from God, you will not be able to stop them, or you may even be found fighting against God." He convinced them,

And every day both in the temple courts and from house to house, they did not stop teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus was the Christ.

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.

The word of God continued to spread, the number of disciples in Jerusalem increased greatly, and a large group of priests became obedient to the faith.

Then they secretly instigated some men to say, "We have heard this man speaking blasphemous words against Moses and God."

So he replied, "Brothers and fathers, listen to me. The God of glory appeared to our forefather Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he settled in Haran,

Then he went out from the country of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After his father died, God made him move to this country where you now live.

He did not give any of it to him for an inheritance, not even a foot of ground, yet God promised to give it to him as his possession, and to his descendants after him, even though Abraham as yet had no child.

But God spoke as follows: 'Your descendants will be foreigners in a foreign country, whose citizens will enslave them and mistreat them for four hundred years.

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.'

Then God gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision, and so he became the father of Isaac and circumcised him when he was eight days old, and Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs.

The patriarchs, because they were jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt. But God was with him,

"But as the time drew near for God to fulfill the promise he had declared to Abraham, the people increased greatly in number in Egypt,

At that time Moses was born, and he was beautiful to God. For three months he was brought up in his father's house,

He thought his own people would understand that God was delivering them through him, but they did not understand.

I am the God of your forefathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.' Moses began to tremble and did not dare to look more closely.

This same Moses they had rejected, saying, 'Who made you a ruler and judge?' God sent as both ruler and deliverer through the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.

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

But God turned away from them and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: 'It was not to me that you offered slain animals and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, was it, house of Israel?

But you took along the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of the god Rephan, the images you made to worship, but I will deport you beyond Babylon.'

Our ancestors had the tabernacle of testimony in the wilderness, just as God who spoke to Moses ordered him to make it according to the design he had seen.

Our ancestors received possession of it and brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our ancestors, until the time of David.

He found favor with God and asked that he could find a dwelling place for the house of Jacob.

But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked intently toward heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

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

Now those who had been forced to scatter went around proclaiming the good news of the word.

All the people, from the least to the greatest, paid close attention to him, saying, "This man is the power of God that is called 'Great.'"

But when they believed Philip as he was proclaiming the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they began to be baptized, both men and women.

Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them.

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

You have no share or part in this matter because your heart is not right before God!

So after Peter and John had solemnly testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they started back to Jerusalem, proclaiming the good news to many Samaritan villages as they went.

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.)

So he got up and went. There he met an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship,

So Philip started speaking, and beginning with this scripture proclaimed the good news about Jesus to him.

Philip, however, found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through the area, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.

So Saul got up from the ground, but although his eyes were open, he could see nothing. Leading him by the hand, his companions brought him into Damascus.

Then the Lord told him, "Get up and go to the street called 'Straight,' and at Judas' house look for a man from Tarsus named Saul. For he is praying,

Immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized,

and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, "This man is the Son of God."

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

Now in Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (which in translation means Dorcas). She was continually doing good deeds and acts of charity.

So Peter got up and went with them, and when he arrived they brought him to the upper room. All the widows stood beside him, crying and showing him the tunics and other clothing Dorcas used to make while she was with them.

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.

He gave her his hand and helped her get up. Then he called the saints and widows and presented her alive.

He was a devout, God-fearing man, as was all his household; he did many acts of charity for the people and prayed to God regularly.

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!"

The voice spoke to him again, a second time, "What God has made clean, you must not consider ritually unclean!"

Now while Peter was puzzling over what the vision he had seen could signify, the men sent by Cornelius had learned where Simon's house was and approached the gate.

But get up, go down, and accompany them without hesitation, because I have sent them."

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."

So Peter invited them in and entertained them as guests. On the next day he got up and set out with them, and some of the brothers from Joppa accompanied him.

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.

Therefore I sent for you at once, and you were kind enough to come. So now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has commanded you to say to us."

Then Peter started speaking: "I now truly understand that God does not show favoritism in dealing with people,

You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, proclaiming the good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all) --

with respect to Jesus from Nazareth, that God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, because God was with him.

but God raised him up on the third day and caused him to be seen,

not by all the people, but by us, the witnesses God had already chosen, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.

He commanded us to preach to the people and to warn them that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead.

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

Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles too had accepted the word of God.

I also heard a voice saying to me, 'Get up, Peter; slaughter and eat!'