so he spoke with a prevision of the resurrection of the Christ, when he said that he was not forsaken in the grave nor did his flesh suffer decay.

Peter looked at him steadily, as did John, and said, "Look at us."

and you killed the pioneer of Life. But God raised him from the dead, as we can bear witness.

who were annoyed at them teaching the people and proclaiming Jesus as an instance of resurrection from the dead.

you and the people of Israel must all understand that he stands before you strong and well, thanks to the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene whom you crucified and whom God raised from the dead.

who said to our fathers by the holy Spirit through the lips of thy servant David, Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples vainly conspire?

When it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And even after the sale, was the money not yours to do as you pleased about it? How could you think of doing a thing like this? You have not defrauded men but God."

"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."

Instantly she fell down at their feet and expired. The younger men came in to find her dead; they carried her out and buried her beside her husband.

But as the attendants did not find them when they got to the prison, they came back to report,

"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!"

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

But he did not give him any inheritance in it, not even a foot of the land. All be did was to promise that he would give it as a possession to him and to his offspring after him (he at the time being childless).

(He thought his brothers would understand God was going to bring them deliverance by means of him, but they did not understand.)

'I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.' Moses was so terrified that he did not dare to look at the bush.

So God turned from them, abandoning them to the worship of the starry Host ??as it is written in the book of the prophets, Did you offer me victims and sacrifices during the forty years in the desert, O house of Israel?

Did not my hand make all this?

Which of the prophets did your fathers fail to persecute? They killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Just One. And here you have betrayed him, murdered him! ??53 you who got the Law that angels transmitted, and have not obeyed it!"

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,

not by all the People but by witnesses whom God had previously selected, by us who ate and drank with him after his resurrection from the dead,

when he enjoined us to preach to the People, testifying that this was he whom God has appointed to be judge of the living and of the dead.

and the angel said to him, "Gird yourself and put on your sandals." He did so. Then said the angel, "Put on your coat and follow me."

And he followed him out, not realizing that what the angel did was real, but imagining that he saw a vision.

But God raised him from the dead.

And as a proof that he has raised him from the dead, never to return to decay, he has said this: I will give you the holiness of David that fails not.

but He whom God raised did not suffer decay.

Look, you disdainful folk, wonder at this and perish for in your days I do a deed, a deed you will never believe, not though one were to explain it to you."

though as the bountiful Giver he did not leave himself without a witness, giving you rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, giving you food and joy to your heart's content."

But Jews from Antioch and Iconium arrived, who won over the crowds, and after pelting Paul with stones they dragged him outside the town, thinking he was dead.

She did this for a number of days. Then Paul turned in annoyance and told the spirit, "In the name of Jesus Christ I order you out of her!" And it left her that very moment.

explaining and quoting passages to prove that the messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead, and that "the Jesus I proclaim to you is the messiah."

inasmuch as he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world justly by a man whom he has destined for this. And he has given proof of this to all by raising him from the dead."

But on hearing of a 'resurrection of dead men,' some sneered, while others said, "We will hear you again on that subject."

Some men, however, did join him and believe, including Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman called Damaris, and some others.

But Crispus the president of the synagogue believed in the Lord, as did all his household, and many of the Corinthians listened, believed, and were baptized.

whom he asked, "Did you receive the holy Spirit when you believed?" "No," they said, "we never even heard of its existence."

Thus did the word of the Lord increase and prevail mightily.

(My companions saw the light, but they did not hear the voice of him who talked to me.)

"Brothers," said Paul, "I did not know he was high priest" (for it is written, You must not speak evil of any ruler of your people).

Then, finding half the Sanhedrin were Sadducees and the other half Pharisees, Paul shouted to them, "I am a Pharisee, brothers, the son of Pharisees! It is for the hope of the resurrection from the dead that I am on trial!"

Failing them, let these men yonder tell what fault they found with my appearance before the Sanhedrin! ??21 unless it was with the single sentence I uttered, when I stood and said, 'It is for the resurrection of the dead that I am on my trial to-day before you.'"

(though at the same time he hoped Paul would give him a bribe). So he did send for him pretty frequently and conversed with him.

but when his accusers stood up they did not charge him with any of the crimes that I had expected.

[Move to the beginning of vs 23] Why should you consider it incredible that God raises the dead,

I did so in Jerusalem. I shut up many of the saints in prison, armed with authority from the high priests; when they were put to death, I voted against them;

there was not a synagogue where I did not often punish them and force them to blaspheme; and in my frantic fury I persecuted them even to foreign towns.

Upon this, O king Agrippa, I did not disobey the heavenly vision;

that the Christ is capable of suffering, and that he should be the first to rise from the dead and bring the message of light to the People and to the Gentiles?"

The natives waited for him to swell up or drop down dead in a moment, but after waiting a long while and observing that no harm had befallen him, they changed their minds and declared he was a god.

When we did reach Rome, Paul got permission to live by himself, with a soldier to guard him.

and installed as Son of God with power by the Spirit of holiness when he was raised from the dead ??concerning Jesus Christ our Lord,

This, that if 'Abraham was justified on the score of what he did,' he has something to be proud of. But not to be proud of before God.

The promise made to Abraham and his offspring that he should inherit the world, did not reach him through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith.

(as it is written, I have made you a father of many nations). Such a faith implies the presence of the God in whom he believed, a God who makes the dead live and calls into being what does not exist.

but for our sakes as well; faith will be counted to us as we believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead,

Our baptism in his death made us share his burial, so that, as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live and move in the new sphere of Life.

(for once dead, a man is absolved from the claims of sin).

for we know that Christ never dies after his resurrection from the dead ??death has no more hold over him;

So you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Thank God, though you did serve sin, you have rendered whole-hearted obedience to what you were taught under the rule of faith;

Well, what did you gain then by it all? Nothing but what you are now ashamed of! The end of all that is death;

It is the same in your case, my brothers. The crucified body of Christ made you dead to the Law, so that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead that we might be fruitful to God.

Then did what was meant for my good prove fatal to me? Never! It was sin; sin resulted in death for me by making use of this good thing. This was how sin was to be revealed in its true nature; it was to use the command to become sinful in the extreme.

That being so, it is not I who do the deed but sin that dwells within me.

Well, if I act against my wishes, it is not I who do the deed but sin that dwells within me.

On the other hand, if Christ is within you, though the body is a dead thing owing to Adam's sin, the spirit is living as the result of righteousness.

And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells within you, then He who raised Christ from the dead will also make your mortal bodies live by his indwelling Spirit in your lives.

The God who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, surely He will give us everything besides!

who shall condemn? Will Christ? ??the Christ who died, yes and rose from the dead! the Christ who is at God's right hand, who actually pleads for us!

But who are you, my man, to speak back to God? Is something a man has moulded to ask him who has moulded it, "Why did you make me like this?"

whereas Israel who did aim at the law of righteousness have failed to reach that law.

Or, 'who will go down to the abyss?' (that is, to bring Christ from the dead).

Confess with your mouth that 'Jesus is Lord,' believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, and you will be saved;

Then, I ask, "Did Israel not understand?" Why, first of all Moses declares, I will make you jealous of a nation that is no nation, I will provoke you to anger over a nation devoid of understanding.

For if their exclusion means that the world is reconciled to God, what will their admission mean? Why, it will be life from the dead!

For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.

it was for this that Christ died and rose and came to life, to be Lord both of the dead and of the living.

Christ certainly did not please himself, but, as it is written, The reproaches of those who denounced Thee have fallen upon me. ??4 All such words were written of old for our instruction, that by remaining stedfast and drawing encouragement from the scriptures we may cherish hope.

(Well, I did baptize the household of Stephanas, but no one else, as far as I remember.)

Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel. And to preach it with no fine rhetoric, lest the cross of Christ should lose its power!

Thus when I came to you, my brothers, I did not come to proclaim to you God's secret purpose with any elaborate words or wisdom.

what I said, what I preached, did not rest on the plausible arguments of 'wisdom' but on the proof supplied by the Spirit and its power,

I did the planting, Apollos did the watering, but it was God who made the seed grow.

I did not mean you were literally to avoid contact with the immoral in this world, with the lustful and the thievish, or with idolaters; in that case you would have to leave the world altogether.

If others share this right over you, why not we all the more? We did not avail ourselves of it, you say? No, we do not mind any privations if we can only avoid putting any obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ.

Nor must we commit immorality, as some of them did ??and in a single day twenty-three thousand of them fell.

Nor must we presume upon the Lord as some of them did ??only to be destroyed by serpents.

And you must not murmur, as some of them did ??only to be destroyed by the destroying angel.

That is why many of you are ill and infirm, and a number even dead.

You challenge this rule? Pray, did God's word start from you? Are you the only people it has reached?

But by God's grace I am what I am. The grace he showed me did not go for nothing; no, I have done far more work than all of them ??though it was not I but God's grace at my side.

Now if we preach that Christ rose from the dead, how can certain individuals among you assert that 'there is no such thing as a resurrection of the dead'?

If 'there is no such thing as a resurrection from the dead,' then even Christ did not rise;

and if Christ did not rise, then our preaching has gone for nothing, and your faith has gone for nothing too.

Besides, we are detected bearing false witness to God by affirming of him that he raised Christ ??whom he did not raise, if after all dead men never rise.

For if dead men never rise, Christ did not rise either;

and if Christ did not rise, your faith is futile, you are still in your sins.

But it is not so! Christ did rise from the dead, he was the first to be reaped of those who sleep in death.

For since death came by man, by man came also resurrection from the dead;

Otherwise, if there is no such thing as a resurrection, what is the meaning of people getting baptized on behalf of their dead? If dead men do not rise at all, why do people get baptized on their behalf?