The next day the vast crowd that had come to the feast, on hearing that Jesus was coming into Jerusalem,

His disciples at the time did not understand this, but after Jesus was glorified, they remembered that this had been written about Him and that they had fulfilled it in His case.

The crowd that had been with Him when He called Lazarus out of the grave and raised him from the dead, kept on talking about it.

This is why the crowd went out to meet Him, because they had heard that He had performed this wonder-work.

Although He had performed so many wonder-works right before their eyes, they did not believe in Him,

Before the Passover feast started, Jesus knew that His time had come for Him to leave the world and go to the Father, and as He had loved His own in the world He loved them to the last.

So Jesus, while supper was on -- although He knew that the devil had suggested to Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray Him --

because He was sure that the Father had put everything into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going back to God,

So when He had washed their feet and had put on His clothes and taken His place at the table, He said to them again: "Do you understand what I have done to you?

for some of them were thinking, as Judas had the purse, that Jesus meant to say to him, "Buy what we need for the feast," or to give something to the poor.

When he had left, Jesus said, "Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in Him,

"I have told you these things, that the joy which I have had may remain in you and that your joy may be complete.

"If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. But now the fact is, they have no excuse for their sin.

If I had not done things among them that no one else has ever done, they would not be guilty of sin. But now the fact is, they have seen and even hated both my Father and me.

When Jesus had said all these things, He lifted His eyes to heaven and said: "Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that He may glorify you,

Now Judas, too, who betrayed Him, knew the spot, because Jesus had often met with His disciples there.

He said this that the statement He had just made might be fulfilled, "I have not lost one of those whom you have given me."

So Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's slave and cut off his right ear. The slave's name was Malchus.

Now it was Caiaphas who had advised the Jews that it was for their welfare that one should die for the people.

Because it was cold, the slaves and attendants had made a charcoal fire and were standing about it warming themselves; so Peter too was standing among them warming himself.

After He had said this, one of the attendants standing by slapped Jesus in the face, and said, "Is this the way you answer the high priest?"

One of the high priest's slaves, who was a kinsman of the one whose ear Peter had cut off, said, "Did I not see you in the garden with Him?"

So then Pilate took Jesus and had Him flogged.

Jesus answered him, "You would have no power at all over me, if it had not been given to you from above. So the man who betrayed me to you is more guilty than you."

On hearing this Pilate had Jesus brought out and had Him sit on the judge's bench at the place called the Stone Platform, or in Hebrew, Gabbatha.

Pilate had a placard written and had it put over the cross: "JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS."

When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took His clothes and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier, except the coat, which was without a seam, woven in one piece from top to bottom,

So the soldiers went and broke the legs of the first man and of the other one who had been crucified with Him.

Now Nicodemus also, who had formerly come to Jesus at night, went and took a mixture of myrrh and aloes that weighed about one hundred pounds.

There was a garden at the place where Jesus had been crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning while it was still dark, Mary of Magdala went to the tomb, and she saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.

but the handkerchief which had been over His face was not lying with the bandages, but was folded up by itself in another place.

So then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, went inside and saw, and he came to believe it.

For they had not previously understood the Scripture which said that He must rise from the dead.

and saw seated there two angels in white robes, one at the head, one at the feet, where Jesus' body had lain.

Mary of Magdala went and announced to the disciples that she had seen the Lord and that He had told her this.

In the evening of that same first day of the week, even with the doors of the room bolted where the disciples had met for fear of the Jews, Jesus went in and stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you!"

So that disciple whom Jesus used to love tenderly said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he belted on his fisherman's coat, for he had taken it off, and plunged into the sea.

This was now the third time that Jesus showed Himself to His disciples, after He had risen from the dead.

After they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of John, are you more devoted to me than you are to these things?" Peter answered Him, "Yes, Lord, you know that I tenderly love you." Jesus said to him, "Then feed my lambs."

He said this to point out the sort of death by which Peter was to glorify God. So after He had said this, He said to Peter, "Keep on following me!"

up to the day when through the Holy Spirit He gave the apostles whom He had chosen their orders, and then was taken up to heaven.

After He had suffered, He had shown Himself alive to them, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them through a period of forty days, and telling them the things about the kingdom of God.

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,

When they reached the city, they went to the room upstairs where they had been staying; they were: Peter and John, James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alpheus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James.

"Brothers, that Scripture had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit uttered by the mouth of David in the former times about Judas who became the guide to those who arrested Jesus;

When the day of Pentecost had now come, they were all meeting in one mind,

this very Jesus, I say, after He was betrayed, in accordance with the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you had wicked men kill by nailing Him to a cross;

So, as he was a prophet and knew that God with an oath had promised to put one of his descendants on his throne,

And all the believers lived together and held all they had as common goods to be shared by one another.

And so they continued to sell their property and goods and to distribute the money to all, as anyone had special need.

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?

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our forefathers, has glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you yourselves betrayed and disowned before Pilate, although he had decided to set Him free.

They had the men stand before them and repeatedly inquired of them, "By what sort of power and authority have you done this?"

They were surprised to see the courage shown by Peter and John and to find that they were uneducated men, and especially untrained in the schools, but they recognized the fact that they had been companions of Jesus,

and since they saw the man who had been cured standing with them, they had nothing to say in reply.

So, after further threatening them, they turned them loose, because they could not find any way to punish them, on account of the people, because they all continued to praise God for what had taken place,

for the man on whom the wonderful cure had been performed was more than forty years old.

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.

"For in this city they actually met against your holy Servant Jesus, whom you had consecrated -- Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the heathen and the peoples of Israel,

to do all that your hand and will had predetermined to take place.

When they had prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and continued courageously to speak God's message.

Now there was but one heart and soul in the vast number of those who had become believers, and not one of them claimed that anything that he had was his own, but they shared everything that they had as common property.

sold the farm he had and brought the money and put it at the disposal of the apostles.

About three hours later, his wife came in, without having learned what had taken place.

they had the apostles arrested and put into the common jail.

So they brought them and had them stand before the council. And the high priest asked them,

The God of our forefathers raised Jesus to life after you had hanged Him on a cross and killed Him.

So they went out from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer disgrace for Jesus' name;

They presented these men to the apostles, and after they had prayed, they laid their hands upon them.

So he left the country of the Chaldeans and for a time made his home in Haran. Then after the death of his father, God had him move to this country in which you now live.

He gave him no property in it, not even a foot of land, and yet He promised to give it to him and his descendants after him, as a permanent possession, although he had no child at that time.

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

As the time approached for realizing the promise which God had made to Abraham, the people multiplied and became more numerous in Egypt,

When forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the desert of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning bush.

That very Moses whom they refused, saying, 'Who made you our ruler and referee?' was the man whom God sent to be both their ruler and deliverer, by the help of the angel who had appeared to him in the bush.

No, you offered me the tent of Moloch and the star of your god Rompha, the images you had made to worship! So I will now remove you beyond Babylon.'

"In the desert our forefathers had the tent of the testimony, like the model Moses had seen, as God who spoke to him ordered him to make it.

There was a man named Simon in the city, who had kept the Samaritan people thrilled by practicing magic there and by claiming to be a great man.

They kept running after him, because for a long time he had thrilled them with his magical performances.

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

for as yet He had not come upon any of them, but they had been baptized merely in the name of the Lord Jesus.

So after they had given their testimony and spoken the Lord's message, they started back to Jerusalem, and on the way continued to tell the good news in many Samaritan villages.

So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian official, a member of the court of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, her chief treasurer, who had come to Jerusalem to worship,

After several days had gone by, the Jews laid a plot to murder him,

Barnabas, however, took him up and presented him to the apostles, and he told them how on the road he had seen the Lord, and how the Lord had spoken to him, and how courageously he had spoken in the name of Jesus at Damascus.

There he found a man named Aeneas, who had been bedridden for eight years as a paralytic.

At Joppa there was a woman, a disciple, whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek means Dorcas, that is, Gazelle. She had filled her life with good deeds and works of charity, which she was always doing.

Just at that time it happened that she had been taken ill and had died. They washed her body and laid her out in a room upstairs.

So Peter at once got up and went with them. When he reached there, they took him to the room upstairs, and all the widows took their stand around him, crying and showing him the shirts and coats that Dorcas had made while she was still with them.

a religious man, too, who revered God with all his household, who was always liberal in his many deeds of charity to the people, and who had the habit of praying to God.

One afternoon about three o'clock he had a vision and clearly saw an angel of God come to him and say, "Cornelius!"

After the angel who had spoken to him had gone, Cornelius called two of his household servants, and a religious soldier who was one of his devoted attendants,

Now while Peter was still at a loss to know what the vision he had seen could mean, the men who had been sent by Cornelius had asked for the way to Simon's house and had stopped at the gate;

The next day he started off with them, and some of the brothers in Joppa went along with him. The day after that they reached Caesarea. Cornelius was waiting for him, as he had invited in his kinsmen and close friends.

As he continued to talk with him he went into the house and found a great crowd had gathered,

not by all the people but by witnesses whom God had beforehand appointed, namely, by us who ate and drank with Him after His resurrection from the dead.

Then the Jewish believers who had gone along with Peter were astounded because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been showered upon the heathen too,

Now the apostles and the brothers all over Judea heard that the heathen too had accepted God's message.

"I was praying in the town of Joppa, and while I was praying I fell in a trance and had a vision. I saw something like a great sheet coming down out of the sky, lowered by the four comers; and it came right down to me.