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

During these days, when the disciples were increasing in number, the Hellenists began to complain against the Hebrews, on the ground that their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food.

So the twelve summoned the main body of the disciples and said: "It is not desirable that we should drop preaching the word of God and attend to meals.

Some of those who belonged to the so-called synagogue of the Libyans, the Cyrenians, and the Alexandrians, as well as to that of the Cilicians and Asiatics, started a dispute with Stephen,

Why, we have heard him say that Jesus the Nazarene will destroy this Place and change the customs handed down to us by Moses!"

Then all who were seated in the Sanhedrin fixed their eyes on him, and saw that his face shone like the face of an angel.

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).

But,' said God, 'I will pass sentence on the nation that has made them slaves, and then they will get away to worship me in this Place.'

Now a famine came over the whole of Egypt and Canaan, attended with great misery, so that our ancestors could not find provender.

But, hearing there was food in Egypt, Jacob sent our ancestors on their first visit to that country;

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;

At that Moses fled; he became a sojourner in the land of Midian, where he had two sons born to him.

'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.

The Moses they refused, when they said, 'Who made you ruler and umpire?' ??that was the very man whom God sent to rule and to redeem them, by aid of the angel who had appeared to him in the bush.

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!

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!"

(Saul quite approved of his murder.) That day a severe persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and everyone, with the exception of the apostles, was scattered over Judaea and Samaria.

So there was great rejoicing in that town.

and all sorts and conditions of people attached themselves to him, declaring he was that Power of God which is known as 'the Great Power.'

When the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they despatched Peter and John,

who came down and prayed that the Samaritans might receive the holy Spirit.

Now Simon noticed that the holy Spirit was conferred by the laying on of the apostles' hands; so he brought them money,

saying, "Let me share this power too, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the holy Spirit."

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

The Spirit said to Philip, "Go up and join that chariot."

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?"

Saul became more and more vigorous. He put the Jewish residents in Damascus to confusion by his proof that Jesus was the Christ;

he also held conversations and debates with the Hellenists. But when the brothers learned that the Hellenists were attempting to make away with him,

Peter moved here and there among them all, and it happened that in the course of his tours he came down to visit the saints who stayed at Lydda.

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."

So Peter got up and went with them. When he arrived, they took him up to the room, where all the widows stood beside him crying as they showed him the garments and dresses that Dorcas used to make when she was with them.

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,

Then Peter opened his lips and said, "I see quite plainly that God has no favourites,

but that he who reverences Him and lives a good life in any nation is welcomed by 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,

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.

All the prophets testify that everyone who believes in him is to receive remission of sins through his Name."

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,

Now the apostles and the brothers in Judaea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God.

At that very moment three men reached the house where I was living, sent to me from Caesarea.

and I remembered the saying of the Lord, that 'John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the holy Spirit.'

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."

one of whom, named Agabus, showed by the Spirit that a severe famine was about to visit the whole world (the famine which occurred in the reign of Claudius).

It was about that time that king Herod laid hands of violence on some members of the church.

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

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."

but as soon as she recognized Peter's voice, instead of opening the door she ran inside from sheer joy and announced that Peter was standing in front of the porch.

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

After that he gave them judges, down to the prophet Samuel.

Then it was that they begged for a king, and God gave them forty years of Saul, the son of Kish, who belonged to the tribe of Benjamin.

After deposing him, he raised up David to be their king, to whom he bore this testimony that 'In David, the son of Jessai, I have found a man after my own heart, who will obey all my will.'

though they could find him guilty of no crime that deserved death, they begged Pilate to have him put to death,

and, after carrying out all that had been predicted of him in scripture, they lowered him from the gibbet and laid him in a tomb.

So we now preach to you the glad news that the promise made to the fathers

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.

So you must understand, my brothers, that remission of sins is proclaimed to you through him,

and that by him everyone who believes is absolved from all that the law of Moses never could absolve you from.

When the Gentiles heard this they rejoiced and glorified the word of the Lord and believed, that is, all who had been ordained to eternal life;

At Iconium the same thing happened. They went into the synagogue of the Jews and spoke in such a way that a great body both of Jews and Greeks believed.

He heard Paul speaking, and Paul, gazing steadily at him and noticing that he had faith enough to make him better,

shouting, "Men, what is this you are doing? We are but human, with natures like your own! The gospel we are preaching to you is to turn from such futile ways to the living God who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all that in them is.

and after preaching the gospel to that town and making a number of disciples, they turned back to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch,

strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to hold by the faith, and telling them that "we have to get into the Realm of God through many a trouble."

But certain individuals came down from Jerusalem and taught the brothers that "unless you get circumcised after the custom of Moses you cannot be saved."

As a sharp dispute and controversy sprang up between them and Paul and Barnabas, it was arranged that Paul and Barnabas, along with some others of their number, should go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and presbyters at Jerusalem about this question.

The church sped them on their journey, and they passed through both Phoenicia and Syria informing the brothers, to the great joy of all, that the Gentiles were turning to God.

and a keen controversy sprang up; but Peter rose and said to them, "Brothers, you are well aware that from the earliest days God chose that of you all I should be the one by whom the Gentiles were to hear the word of the gospel and believe it.

No, it is by the grace of the Lord Jesus that we believe and are saved, in the same way as they are."

that the rest of men may seek for the Lord, even all the Gentiles who are called by my name, saith the Lord,

but write them injunctions to abstain from whatever is contaminated by idols, from sexual vice, from the flesh of animals that have been strangled, and from tasting blood;

Having learned that some of our number, quite unauthorized by us, have unsettled you with their teaching and upset your souls,

abstain from food that has been offered to idols, from tasting blood, from the flesh of animals that have been strangled, and from sexual vice. Keep clear of all this and you will prosper. Goodbye."

As soon as he saw the vision, we made efforts to start for Macedonia, inferring that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

Now it happened as we went to the place of prayer that a slave-girl met us, possessed by a spirit of ventriloquism, and a source of great profit to her owners by her power of fortune-telling.

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.

Then he took them at that very hour of the night and washed their wounds and got baptized instantly, he and all his family.

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."

But when the Jews of Thessalonica heard that Paul was proclaiming the word of God at Beroea as well, they came to create a disturbance and a riot among the crowds at Beroea too.

Paul's escort brought him as far as Athens and left with instructions that Silas and Timotheus were to join him as soon as possible.

While Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his soul was irritated at the sight of the idols that filled the city.

You talk of some things that sound strange to us; so we want to know what they mean."

So Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus and said, "Men of Athens, I observe at every turn that you are a most religious people.

The God who made the world and all things in it, he, as Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in shrines that are made by human hands;

for it is in him that we live and move and exist ??as some of your own poets have said, 'We too belong to His race.'

Well, as the race of God, we ought not to imagine that the divine nature resembles gold or silver or stone, the product of human art and invention.

Such ages of ignorance God overlooked, but he now charges men that they are all everywhere to repent,

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

By the time Silas and Timotheus came south from Macedonia, Paul was engrossed in this preaching of the word, arguing to the Jews that the messiah was Jesus.

But as these are merely questions of words and persons and your own Law, you can attend to them for yourselves. I decline to adjudicate upon matters like that."

He had been instructed in the Way of the Lord and he preached and taught about Jesus with ardour and accuracy, though all the baptism he knew was that of John.

for he publicly refuted the Jews with might and main, showing from the scriptures that the messiah was Jesus.

It was when Apollos was in Corinth that Paul, after passing through the inland districts, came down to Ephesus. There he found some disciples,

"John," said Paul, "baptized with a baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in Him who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus."

This went on for two years, so that all the inhabitants of Asia, Jews as well as Greeks, heard the word of the Lord.

and numbers who had practised magic arts collected their books and burned them in the presence of all. On adding up the value of them, it was found that they were worth two thousand pounds.

It was about that time that a great commotion arose over the Way. This was how it happened.

You also see and hear that not only at Ephesus but almost all over Asia this fellow Paul has drawn off a considerable number of people by his persuasions. He declares that hand-made gods are not gods at all.

Now the danger is not only that we will have our trade discredited but that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will fall into contempt and that she will be degraded from her majestic glory, she whom all Asia and the wide world worship."

The secretary of state then got the mob calmed down, and said to them, "Men of Ephesus, who on earth does not know that the city of Ephesus is Warden of the temple of the great Artemis and of the statue that fell from heaven?