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The Acts of the Apostles 13

13 At that time in the group of believers in the city of Antioch there were prophets and teachers. They were: Barnabas; Simeon, whose other name was Niger; Lucius, who was from the city of Cyrene; Manaen, who had grown up with Herod Antipas when he was the ruler of Galilee; and Saul. 2 While the believers in Antioch were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit spoke to them. He said, “I want you to let Barnabas and Saul serve me in a particular way. I want you to send them on a special mission that I have chosen them to do.” 3 So the believers fasted and prayed some more. Then they put their hands on Barnabas and Saul to show that they approved of them going on this special mission. Then they sent them off to do what the Holy Spirit had commanded.

4 The Holy Spirit gave Barnabas and Saul instructions about where to go. So they went from Antioch to the city of Seleucia, which is by the sea. From there they went by ship to the city of Salamis on the island of Cyprus. 5 While they were in Salamis, they went to the Jewish meeting places. There they proclaimed the message God had told them to share about Jesus. John Mark went with them and was helping them.

6 The three of them crossed from one side of the island to the other and shared the gospel message in each town they passed through. Eventually they came to the city of Paphos. There they met a sorcerer whose name was Bar Jesus. He was a Jew who falsely claimed to be a prophet. 7 He was often in the company of the governor of the island, Sergius Paulus, who was a sensible man. The governor sent someone to ask Barnabas and Saul to come to him because he wanted to hear what God had told them to say. 8 However, Bar Jesus, who also called himself Elymas, contradicted what Barnabas and Paul were saying. (The name Elymas means “the Sorcerer.”) He kept trying to persuade the governor not to believe in Jesus. 9 Saul was using his Roman name, Paul, because he was visiting a Roman official. The Holy Spirit gave Paul boldness and insight. He looked steadily at the sorcerer. 10 Paul said, “You are constantly lying to people and doing things to deceive them! You are serving the devil! You try to stop everything that is good! You must stop trying to keep people from living in the way that God wants! 11 Right now the Lord God is going to punish you! You will become blind and you will not even be able to see the sun until God decides to let you see again.” At once Elymas could no longer see clearly. Then he could not see at all. He wandered around, searching for someone to take him by the hand and lead him. 12 When Sergius Paulus saw what had happened to Elymas, he believed in Jesus. The truth and power of what Paul and Barnabas were teaching about Jesus amazed him.

13 After that, Paul and the people with him traveled by sailboat from Paphos to the city of Perga in the province of Pamphylia. At Perga, John Mark left them and returned to his home in Jerusalem. 14 Then Paul and Barnabas traveled by land from Perga and arrived in the city of Antioch in the district of Pisidia in the province of Galatia. On the Sabbath, they entered the Jewish meeting place and sat down as rabbis did. 15 Someone read aloud from what Moses had written in the books of the Law. Next someone read from what the prophets had written. Then the leaders of the Jewish meeting place sent a message to Paul and Barnabas. They said, “Fellow Jews, if one of you wants to speak to the people here to encourage them, please speak to us now.”

16 So Paul stood up and motioned with his hand so that the people would listen to him. Then he said, “Fellow Israelites and you non-Jewish people who also worship God, please listen to me! 17 God, whom we Israelites worship, chose our ancestors to be his people. He caused them to become very numerous while they were foreigners living in Egypt. Then God did powerful things to lead them out of slavery there. 18 He put up with their disobedience for about forty years while they were in the wilderness. 19 He enabled the Israelites to conquer seven people groups who were then living in the region of Canaan. He gave their land to the Israelites to live in. 20 The Israelites spent about 450 years in Egypt and in the wilderness.”

“After that, God chose people to serve as judges and as leaders to rule the Israelite people. The prophet Samuel was the last of these judges to rule them. 21 Then, while Samuel was still their leader, the people demanded that he choose a king to rule them. So God chose Saul, the son of Kish from the tribe of Benjamin, to be their king. He ruled them for 40 years. 22 After God had rejected Saul from being king, he chose David to be their king. God said about him, ‘I have seen that David, son of Jesse, is exactly the kind of man who desires what I desire. He will do everything that I want him to do.’ ”

23 “God brought one of David’s descendants, Jesus, to us Israelite people to save us. This is what he had promised David and our other ancestors that he would do. 24 Before Jesus began his work, John the Baptizer preached to all of our Israelite people who came to him. He told them that they should turn away from their sinful behavior and ask God to forgive them. Then he would baptize them. 25 When John was about to finish the work that God gave him to do, he told the crowds, ‘Do not think that I am the Messiah whom God promised to send, because I am not. But listen! The Messiah will soon come. He is so much greater than I am that I do not even deserve to be his slave and take the sandals off his feet.’ ”

26 “My fellow Israelites who are descendants of Abraham and you non-Jewish people who also worship God, please listen! God has told all of us how he saves people. 27 The people living in Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize Jesus. They heard someone read from the writings of the prophets in their synagogues on every Sabbath day. But they did not understand what the prophets were saying. And so what the prophets predicted long ago came true when they condemned Jesus to death. 28 Many people accused Jesus of doing wicked things. They could not prove that he had done anything for which he deserved to die. But they still demanded that Pilate, the governor, condemn him to death. 29 They did to Jesus all the things that the prophets had written long ago that people would do to him. They killed Jesus by nailing him to a cross. Then they took his body down from the cross and placed it in a tomb. 30 However, God brought him back to life after he was dead. 31 For many days he repeatedly appeared to his disciples who had come along with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. Those who saw him are telling the people about him now.”

32 “Right now we are proclaiming this good news to you. God made a promise to our Jewish ancestors. 33 God has kept that promise for us who are their descendants, and also for you who are not Jews, by making Jesus alive again. It is just like what David wrote in the second Psalm, when God was speaking about sending his Son:

‘You are my Son;

today I have become your Father.’

34 God has made the Messiah alive after he was dead, and God will never let him die again. God promised that to the Messiah when he said in the Scriptures,

‘I will certainly help you, as I promised David that I would do.’ 35 That is why, in another psalm, David also says:

‘You, God, will not allow the body of your Messiah to decay.’ 36 While David was living, he did what God wanted him to do. Then when he died his body was buried where his ancestors’ bodies had been buried. Then David’s body decayed. So he could not have been speaking about himself in this psalm. 37 But God made Jesus alive again after he died, and his body did not decay.”

38 “So, fellow Israelites and other friends, we want you to know that God is promising to forgive your sins as a result of what Jesus has done. You could not become right with God by obeying the laws that Moses wrote because there were many laws that you were not able to obey. 39 But now God declares that all people who believe in Jesus are no longer guilty of any of the things that they have done that have displeased him. 40 So then be careful that God does not judge you, as the prophets said that God would do! 41 God said through the prophet Habakkuk,

‘You who ridicule me, you will certainly be amazed when you see what I am doing. Then you will be destroyed. You will be amazed because I will do something terrible to you while you are living. You would not believe that I would do that even if someone told you!’ ”

42 After Paul finished speaking, and as he and Barnabas were going away, many of the people there asked them to return on the next Sabbath and speak to them about these things again. 43 When the meeting was over, many people became disciples of Jesus, as Paul and Barnabas had encouraged them to do. These people were both Jews and non-Jews who worshiped God. Paul and Barnabas continued talking to them. They urged them to continue to trust that God kindly forgives people’s sins because of what Jesus did.

44 On the next Sabbath day, most of the people in Antioch came to the Jewish meeting place to hear Paul and Barnabas speak about Jesus. 45 The leaders of the Jews saw the large crowds of people that were coming to hear Paul and Barnabas. This made them extremely jealous. So they began to contradict the things that Paul was saying. They also insulted him. 46 Then, speaking very boldly, Paul and Barnabas said to those Jewish leaders, “We had to speak the message from God about Jesus to you Jews first before we proclaim it to non-Jews, because God commanded us to do that. But you are rejecting God’s message. By doing that, you have shown that you are not worthy of everlasting life. Therefore, we are leaving you, and now we will go to the non-Jewish people to tell them the message from God. 47 We are doing this because the Lord God has commanded us to do it. He said in the Scriptures, ‘I have chosen you to reveal things about me to non-Jewish people that will be like a light to them. I have chosen you to tell people everywhere in the world the message that I want to save them.’ ”

48 When the non-Jewish people heard those words, they rejoiced. They praised God for the message about Jesus. All of the non-Jewish people whom God had chosen for everlasting life put their trust in Jesus. 49 At that time, many of the believers traveled around throughout that region, spreading the message about the Lord Jesus everywhere they went.

50 However, some leaders of the Jews talked to some important women who worshiped with them. They also talked to the most important men in the city. The Jewish leaders persuaded the non-Jewish city leaders to try to stop Paul and Barnabas. So those non-Jewish people led many citizens against Paul and Barnabas, and they made them leave their region. 51 As the two apostles were leaving, they shook the dust off their feet. This was to show those leaders that God had rejected them and would punish them. Then they left the city of Antioch and went to the city of Iconium. 52 Meanwhile, the people in Antioch who had believed in Jesus were very happy and the Holy Spirit was helping them greatly.

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