Acts 11-12

Acts 11

¹The apostles and brothers throughout Judea soon heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God.

²So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers took issue with him

³and said, “You visited uncircumcised men and ate with them.”

⁴But Peter began and explained to them the whole sequence of events:

⁵“I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision of something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came right down to me.

⁶I looked at it closely and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles, and birds of the air.

⁷Then I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter, kill and eat.’

⁸‘No, Lord,’ I said, ‘for nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’

⁹But the voice spoke from heaven a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’

¹⁰This happened three times, and everything was drawn back up into heaven.

¹¹Just then three men sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying.

¹²The Spirit told me to accompany them without hesitation. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s home.

¹³He told us how he had seen an angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter.

¹⁴He will convey to you a message by which you and all your household will be saved.’

¹⁵As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, just as He had fallen upon us at the beginning.

¹⁶Then I remembered the word of the Lord, as He used to say, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’

¹⁷So if God gave them the same gift He gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to hinder the work of God?”

¹⁸When they heard this, their objections were put to rest, and they glorified God, saying, “So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.”

¹⁹Meanwhile those scattered by the persecution that began with Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, speaking the message only to Jews.

²⁰But some of them, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began speaking to the Greeks as well, proclaiming the good news about the Lord Jesus.

²¹The hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.

²²When news of this reached the ears of the church in Jerusalem, they sent Barnabas to Antioch.

²³When he arrived and saw the grace of God, he rejoiced and encouraged them all to abide in the Lord with all their hearts.

²⁴Barnabas was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord.

²⁵Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul,

²⁶and when he found him, he brought him back to Antioch. So for a full year they met together with the church and taught large numbers of people. The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch.

²⁷In those days some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch.

²⁸One of them named Agabus stood up and predicted through the Spirit that a great famine would sweep across the whole world. (This happened under Claudius.)

²⁹So the disciples, each according to his ability, decided to send relief to the brothers living in Judea.

³⁰This they did, sending their gifts to the elders with Barnabas and Saul.

Acts 12

¹About that time, King Herod reached out to harm some who belonged to the church.

²He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword.

³And seeing that this pleased the Jews, Herod proceeded to seize Peter during the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

⁴He arrested him and put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out to the people after the Passover.

⁵So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was fervently praying to God for him.

⁶On the night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, with sentries standing guard at the entrance to the prison.

⁷Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He tapped Peter on the side and woke him up, saying, “Get up quickly.” And the chains fell off his wrists.

⁸“Get dressed and put on your sandals,” said the angel. Peter did so, and the angel told him, “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.”

⁹So Peter followed him out, but he was unaware that what the angel was doing was real. He thought he was only seeing a vision.

¹⁰They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city, which opened for them by itself. When they had gone outside and walked the length of one block, the angel suddenly left him.

¹¹Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I know for sure that the Lord has sent His angel and rescued me from Herod’s grasp and from everything the Jewish people were anticipating.”

¹²And when he had realized this, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered together and were praying.

¹³He knocked at the outer gate, and a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer it.

¹⁴When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed that she forgot to open the gate, but ran inside and announced, “Peter is standing at the gate!”

¹⁵“You are out of your mind,” they told her. But when she kept insisting it was so, they said, “It must be his angel.”

¹⁶But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astounded.

¹⁷Peter motioned with his hand for silence, and he described how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. “Send word to James and to the brothers,” he said, and he left for another place.

¹⁸At daybreak there was no small commotion among the soldiers as to what had become of Peter.

¹⁹After Herod had searched for him unsuccessfully, he examined the guards and ordered that they be executed. Then he went down from Judea to Caesarea and spent some time there.

²⁰Now Herod was in a furious dispute with the people of Tyre and Sidon, and they convened before him. Having secured the support of Blastus, the king’s chamberlain, they asked for peace, because their region depended on the king’s country for food.

²¹On the appointed day, Herod donned his royal robes, sat on his throne, and addressed the people.

²²And they began to shout, “This is the voice of a god, not a man!”

²³Immediately, because Herod did not give glory to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.

²⁴But the word of God continued to spread and multiply.

²⁵When Barnabas and Saul had fulfilled their mission to Jerusalem, they returned, bringing with them John, also called Mark.