Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹Six days later Jesus took Peter and the two brothers, James and John, and led them up a high mountain to be alone.

²As the men watched, Jesus’ appearance was transformed so that his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as light.

³Suddenly, Moses and Elijah appeared and began talking with Jesus.

⁴Peter exclaimed, “Lord, it’s wonderful for us to be here! If you want, I’ll make three shelters as memorials — one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

⁵But even as he spoke, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy. Listen to him.”

⁶The disciples were terrified and fell face down on the ground.

⁷Then Jesus came over and touched them. “Get up,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.”

⁸And when they looked up, Moses and Elijah were gone, and they saw only Jesus.

⁹As they went back down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, “Don’t tell anyone what you have seen until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

¹⁰Then his disciples asked him, “Why do the teachers of religious law insist that Elijah must return before the Messiah comes? ”

¹¹Jesus replied, “Elijah is indeed coming first to get everything ready.

¹²But I tell you, Elijah has already come, but he wasn’t recognized, and they chose to abuse him. And in the same way they will also make the Son of Man suffer.”

¹³Then the disciples realized he was talking about John the Baptist.

¹⁴At the foot of the mountain, a large crowd was waiting for them. A man came and knelt before Jesus and said,

¹⁵“Lord, have mercy on my son. He has seizures and suffers terribly. He often falls into the fire or into the water.

¹⁶So I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn’t heal him.”

¹⁷Jesus said, “You faithless and corrupt people! How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.”

¹⁸Then Jesus rebuked the demon in the boy, and it left him. From that moment the boy was well.

¹⁹Afterward the disciples asked Jesus privately, “Why couldn’t we cast out that demon?”

²⁰“You don’t have enough faith,” Jesus told them. “I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible. ”

²¹

²²After they gathered again in Galilee, Jesus told them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of his enemies.

²³He will be killed, but on the third day he will be raised from the dead.” And the disciples were filled with grief.

²⁴On their arrival in Capernaum, the collectors of the Temple tax came to Peter and asked him, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the Temple tax?”

²⁵“Yes, he does,” Peter replied. Then he went into the house. But before he had a chance to speak, Jesus asked him, “What do you think, Peter? Do kings tax their own people or the people they have conquered? ”

²⁶“They tax the people they have conquered,” Peter replied. “Well, then,” Jesus said, “the citizens are free!

²⁷However, we don’t want to offend them, so go down to the lake and throw in a line. Open the mouth of the first fish you catch, and you will find a large silver coin. Take it and pay the tax for both of us.”

¹“These are the instructions for the guilt offering. It is most holy.

²The animal sacrificed as a guilt offering must be slaughtered at the place where the burnt offerings are slaughtered, and its blood must be splattered against all sides of the altar.

³The priest will then offer all its fat on the altar, including the fat of the broad tail, the fat around the internal organs,

⁴the two kidneys and the fat around them near the loins, and the long lobe of the liver. These are to be removed with the kidneys,

⁵and the priests will burn them on the altar as a special gift presented to the LORD. This is the guilt offering.

⁶Any male from a priest’s family may eat the meat. It must be eaten in a sacred place, for it is most holy.

⁷“The same instructions apply to both the guilt offering and the sin offering. Both belong to the priest who uses them to purify someone, making that person right with the LORD.

⁸In the case of the burnt offering, the priest may keep the hide of the sacrificed animal.

⁹Any grain offering that has been baked in an oven, prepared in a pan, or cooked on a griddle belongs to the priest who presents it.

¹⁰All other grain offerings, whether made of dry flour or flour moistened with olive oil, are to be shared equally among all the priests, the descendants of Aaron.

¹¹“These are the instructions regarding the different kinds of peace offerings that may be presented to the LORD.

¹²If you present your peace offering as an expression of thanksgiving, the usual animal sacrifice must be accompanied by various kinds of bread made without yeast — thin cakes mixed with olive oil, wafers spread with oil, and cakes made of choice flour mixed with olive oil.

¹³This peace offering of thanksgiving must also be accompanied by loaves of bread made with yeast.

¹⁴One of each kind of bread must be presented as a gift to the LORD. It will then belong to the priest who splatters the blood of the peace offering against the altar.

¹⁵The meat of the peace offering of thanksgiving must be eaten on the same day it is offered. None of it may be saved for the next morning.

¹⁶“If you bring an offering to fulfill a vow or as a voluntary offering, the meat must be eaten on the same day the sacrifice is offered, but whatever is left over may be eaten on the second day.

¹⁷Any meat left over until the third day must be completely burned up.

¹⁸If any of the meat from the peace offering is eaten on the third day, the person who presented it will not be accepted by the LORD. You will receive no credit for offering it. By then the meat will be contaminated; if you eat it, you will be punished for your sin.

¹⁹“Meat that touches anything ceremonially unclean may not be eaten; it must be completely burned up. The rest of the meat may be eaten, but only by people who are ceremonially clean.

²⁰If you are ceremonially unclean and you eat meat from a peace offering that was presented to the LORD, you will be cut off from the community.

²¹If you touch anything that is unclean (whether it is human defilement or an unclean animal or any other unclean, detestable thing) and then eat meat from a peace offering presented to the LORD, you will be cut off from the community.”

²²Then the LORD said to Moses,

²³“Give the following instructions to the people of Israel. You must never eat fat, whether from cattle, sheep, or goats.

²⁴The fat of an animal found dead or torn to pieces by wild animals must never be eaten, though it may be used for any other purpose.

²⁵Anyone who eats fat from an animal presented as a special gift to the LORD will be cut off from the community.

²⁶No matter where you live, you must never consume the blood of any bird or animal.

²⁷Anyone who consumes blood will be cut off from the community.”

²⁸Then the LORD said to Moses,

²⁹“Give the following instructions to the people of Israel. When you present a peace offering to the LORD, bring part of it as a gift to the LORD.

³⁰Present it to the LORD with your own hands as a special gift to the LORD. Bring the fat of the animal, together with the breast, and lift up the breast as a special offering to the LORD.

³¹Then the priest will burn the fat on the altar, but the breast will belong to Aaron and his descendants.

³²Give the right thigh of your peace offering to the priest as a gift.

³³The right thigh must always be given to the priest who offers the blood and the fat of the peace offering.

³⁴For I have reserved the breast of the special offering and the right thigh of the sacred offering for the priests. It is the permanent right of Aaron and his descendants to share in the peace offerings brought by the people of Israel.

³⁵This is their rightful share. The special gifts presented to the LORD have been reserved for Aaron and his descendants from the time they were set apart to serve the LORD as priests.

³⁶On the day they were anointed, the LORD commanded the Israelites to give these portions to the priests as their permanent share from generation to generation.”

³⁷These are the instructions for the burnt offering, the grain offering, the sin offering, and the guilt offering, as well as the ordination offering and the peace offering.

³⁸The LORD gave these instructions to Moses on Mount Sinai when he commanded the Israelites to present their offerings to the LORD in the wilderness of Sinai.

¹So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.

²Listen! I, Paul, tell you this: If you are counting on circumcision to make you right with God, then Christ will be of no benefit to you.

³I’ll say it again. If you are trying to find favor with God by being circumcised, you must obey every regulation in the whole law of Moses.

⁴For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace.

⁵But we who live by the Spirit eagerly wait to receive by faith the righteousness God has promised to us.

⁶For when we place our faith in Christ Jesus, there is no benefit in being circumcised or being uncircumcised. What is important is faith expressing itself in love.

⁷You were running the race so well. Who has held you back from following the truth?

⁸It certainly isn’t God, for he is the one who called you to freedom.

⁹This false teaching is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough!

¹⁰I am trusting the Lord to keep you from believing false teachings. God will judge that person, whoever he is, who has been confusing you.

¹¹Dear brothers and sisters, if I were still preaching that you must be circumcised — as some say I do — why am I still being persecuted? If I were no longer preaching salvation through the cross of Christ, no one would be offended.

¹²I just wish that those troublemakers who want to mutilate you by circumcision would mutilate themselves.

¹³For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love.

¹⁴For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

¹⁵But if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another.

¹⁶So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves.

¹⁷The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions.

¹⁸But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses.

¹⁹When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures,

²⁰idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division,

²¹envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

²²But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

²³gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

²⁴Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there.

²⁵Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.

²⁶Let us not become conceited, or provoke one another, or be jealous of one another.

¹My dear brothers and sisters, how can you claim to have faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ if you favor some people over others?

²For example, suppose someone comes into your meeting dressed in fancy clothes and expensive jewelry, and another comes in who is poor and dressed in dirty clothes.

³If you give special attention and a good seat to the rich person, but you say to the poor one, “You can stand over there, or else sit on the floor” — well,

⁴doesn’t this discrimination show that your judgments are guided by evil motives?

⁵Listen to me, dear brothers and sisters. Hasn’t God chosen the poor in this world to be rich in faith? Aren’t they the ones who will inherit the Kingdom he promised to those who love him?

⁶But you dishonor the poor! Isn’t it the rich who oppress you and drag you into court?

⁷Aren’t they the ones who slander Jesus Christ, whose noble name you bear?

⁸Yes indeed, it is good when you obey the royal law as found in the Scriptures: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

⁹But if you favor some people over others, you are committing a sin. You are guilty of breaking the law.

¹⁰For the person who keeps all of the laws except one is as guilty as a person who has broken all of God’s laws.

¹¹For the same God who said, “You must not commit adultery,” also said, “You must not murder.” So if you murder someone but do not commit adultery, you have still broken the law.

¹²So whatever you say or whatever you do, remember that you will be judged by the law that sets you free.

¹³There will be no mercy for those who have not shown mercy to others. But if you have been merciful, God will be merciful when he judges you.

¹⁴What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone?

¹⁵Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing,

¹⁶and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well” — but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?

¹⁷So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.

¹⁸Now someone may argue, “Some people have faith; others have good deeds.” But I say, “How can you show me your faith if you don’t have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds.”

¹⁹You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror.

²⁰How foolish! Can’t you see that faith without good deeds is useless?

²¹Don’t you remember that our ancestor Abraham was shown to be right with God by his actions when he offered his son Isaac on the altar?

²²You see, his faith and his actions worked together. His actions made his faith complete.

²³And so it happened just as the Scriptures say: “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.” He was even called the friend of God.

²⁴So you see, we are shown to be right with God by what we do, not by faith alone.

²⁵Rahab the prostitute is another example. She was shown to be right with God by her actions when she hid those messengers and sent them safely away by a different road.

²⁶Just as the body is dead without breath, so also faith is dead without good works.

¹Elihu continued speaking:

²“Let me go on, and I will show you the truth. For I have not finished defending God!

³I will present profound arguments for the righteousness of my Creator.

⁴I am telling you nothing but the truth, for I am a man of great knowledge.

⁵“God is mighty, but he does not despise anyone! He is mighty in both power and understanding.

⁶He does not let the wicked live but gives justice to the afflicted.

⁷He never takes his eyes off the innocent, but he sets them on thrones with kings and exalts them forever.

⁸If they are bound in chains and caught up in a web of trouble,

⁹he shows them the reason. He shows them their sins of pride.

¹⁰He gets their attention and commands that they turn from evil.

¹¹“If they listen and obey God, they will be blessed with prosperity throughout their lives. All their years will be pleasant.

¹²But if they refuse to listen to him, they will cross over the river of death, dying from lack of understanding.

¹³For the godless are full of resentment. Even when he punishes them, they refuse to cry out to him for help.

¹⁴They die when they are young, after wasting their lives in immoral living.

¹⁵But by means of their suffering, he rescues those who suffer. For he gets their attention through adversity.

¹⁶“God is leading you away from danger, Job, to a place free from distress. He is setting your table with the best food.

¹⁷But you are obsessed with whether the godless will be judged. Don’t worry, judgment and justice will be upheld.

¹⁸But watch out, or you may be seduced by wealth. Don’t let yourself be bribed into sin.

¹⁹Could all your wealth or all your mighty efforts keep you from distress?

²⁰Do not long for the cover of night, for that is when people will be destroyed.

²¹Be on guard! Turn back from evil, for God sent this suffering to keep you from a life of evil.

²²“Look, God is all-powerful. Who is a teacher like him?

²³No one can tell him what to do, or say to him, ‘You have done wrong.’

²⁴Instead, glorify his mighty works, singing songs of praise.

²⁵Everyone has seen these things, though only from a distance.

²⁶“Look, God is greater than we can understand. His years cannot be counted.

²⁷He draws up the water vapor and then distills it into rain.

²⁸The rain pours down from the clouds, and everyone benefits.

²⁹Who can understand the spreading of the clouds and the thunder that rolls forth from heaven?

³⁰See how he spreads the lightning around him and how it lights up the depths of the sea.

³¹By these mighty acts he nourishes the people, giving them food in abundance.

³²He fills his hands with lightning bolts and hurls each at its target.

³³The thunder announces his presence; the storm announces his indignant anger.

¹Oh, praise the LORD, all you servants of the LORD, you who serve at night in the house of the LORD.

²Lift your hands toward the sanctuary, and praise the LORD.

³May the LORD, who made heaven and earth, bless you from Jerusalem.

¹My son, pay attention to my wisdom; listen carefully to my wise counsel.

²Then you will show discernment, and your lips will express what you’ve learned.

³For the lips of an immoral woman are as sweet as honey, and her mouth is smoother than oil.

⁴But in the end she is as bitter as poison, as dangerous as a double-edged sword.

⁵Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave.

⁶For she cares nothing about the path to life. She staggers down a crooked trail and doesn’t realize it.

⁷So now, my sons, listen to me. Never stray from what I am about to say:

⁸Stay away from her! Don’t go near the door of her house!

⁹If you do, you will lose your honor and will lose to merciless people all you have achieved.

¹⁰Strangers will consume your wealth, and someone else will enjoy the fruit of your labor.

¹¹In the end you will groan in anguish when disease consumes your body.

¹²You will say, “How I hated discipline! If only I had not ignored all the warnings!

¹³Oh, why didn’t I listen to my teachers? Why didn’t I pay attention to my instructors?

¹⁴I have come to the brink of utter ruin, and now I must face public disgrace.”

¹⁵Drink water from your own well — share your love only with your wife.

¹⁶Why spill the water of your springs in the streets, having sex with just anyone?

¹⁷You should reserve it for yourselves. Never share it with strangers.

¹⁸Let your wife be a fountain of blessing for you. Rejoice in the wife of your youth.

¹⁹She is a loving deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts satisfy you always. May you always be captivated by her love.

²⁰Why be captivated, my son, by an immoral woman, or fondle the breasts of a promiscuous woman?

²¹For the LORD sees clearly what a man does, examining every path he takes.

²²An evil man is held captive by his own sins; they are ropes that catch and hold him.

²³He will die for lack of self-control; he will be lost because of his great foolishness.

¹Now Jephthah of Gilead was a great warrior. He was the son of Gilead, but his mother was a prostitute.

²Gilead’s wife also had several sons, and when these half brothers grew up, they chased Jephthah off the land. “You will not get any of our father’s inheritance,” they said, “for you are the son of a prostitute.”

³So Jephthah fled from his brothers and lived in the land of Tob. Soon he had a band of worthless rebels following him.

⁴At about this time, the Ammonites began their war against Israel.

⁵When the Ammonites attacked, the elders of Gilead sent for Jephthah in the land of Tob.

⁶The elders said, “Come and be our commander! Help us fight the Ammonites!”

⁷But Jephthah said to them, “Aren’t you the ones who hated me and drove me from my father’s house? Why do you come to me now when you’re in trouble?”

⁸“Because we need you,” the elders replied. “If you lead us in battle against the Ammonites, we will make you ruler over all the people of Gilead.”

⁹Jephthah said to the elders, “Let me get this straight. If I come with you and if the LORD gives me victory over the Ammonites, will you really make me ruler over all the people?”

¹⁰“The LORD is our witness,” the elders replied. “We promise to do whatever you say.”

¹¹So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him their ruler and commander of the army. At Mizpah, in the presence of the LORD, Jephthah repeated what he had said to the elders.

¹²Then Jephthah sent messengers to the king of Ammon, asking, “Why have you come out to fight against my land?”

¹³The king of Ammon answered Jephthah’s messengers, “When the Israelites came out of Egypt, they stole my land from the Arnon River to the Jabbok River and all the way to the Jordan. Now then, give back the land peaceably.”

¹⁴Jephthah sent this message back to the Ammonite king:

¹⁵“This is what Jephthah says: Israel did not steal any land from Moab or Ammon.

¹⁶When the people of Israel arrived at Kadesh on their journey from Egypt after crossing the Red Sea,

¹⁷they sent messengers to the king of Edom asking for permission to pass through his land. But their request was denied. Then they asked the king of Moab for similar permission, but he wouldn’t let them pass through either. So the people of Israel stayed in Kadesh.

¹⁸“Finally, they went around Edom and Moab through the wilderness. They traveled along Moab’s eastern border and camped on the other side of the Arnon River. But they never once crossed the Arnon River into Moab, for the Arnon was the border of Moab.

¹⁹“Then Israel sent messengers to King Sihon of the Amorites, who ruled from Heshbon, asking for permission to cross through his land to get to their destination.

²⁰But King Sihon didn’t trust Israel to pass through his land. Instead, he mobilized his army at Jahaz and attacked them.

²¹But the LORD, the God of Israel, gave his people victory over King Sihon. So Israel took control of all the land of the Amorites, who lived in that region,

²²from the Arnon River to the Jabbok River, and from the eastern wilderness to the Jordan.

²³“So you see, it was the LORD, the God of Israel, who took away the land from the Amorites and gave it to Israel. Why, then, should we give it back to you?

²⁴You keep whatever your god Chemosh gives you, and we will keep whatever the LORD our God gives us.

²⁵Are you any better than Balak son of Zippor, king of Moab? Did he try to make a case against Israel for disputed land? Did he go to war against them?

²⁶“Israel has been living here for 300 years, inhabiting Heshbon and its surrounding settlements, all the way to Aroer and its settlements, and in all the towns along the Arnon River. Why have you made no effort to recover it before now?

²⁷Therefore, I have not sinned against you. Rather, you have wronged me by attacking me. Let the LORD, who is judge, decide today which of us is right — Israel or Ammon.”

²⁸But the king of Ammon paid no attention to Jephthah’s message.

²⁹At that time the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah, and he went throughout the land of Gilead and Manasseh, including Mizpah in Gilead, and from there he led an army against the Ammonites.

³⁰And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD. He said, “If you give me victory over the Ammonites,

³¹I will give to the LORD whatever comes out of my house to meet me when I return in triumph. I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”

³²So Jephthah led his army against the Ammonites, and the LORD gave him victory.

³³He crushed the Ammonites, devastating about twenty towns from Aroer to an area near Minnith and as far away as Abel-keramim. In this way Israel defeated the Ammonites.

³⁴When Jephthah returned home to Mizpah, his daughter came out to meet him, playing on a tambourine and dancing for joy. She was his one and only child; he had no other sons or daughters.

³⁵When he saw her, he tore his clothes in anguish. “Oh, my daughter!” he cried out. “You have completely destroyed me! You’ve brought disaster on me! For I have made a vow to the LORD, and I cannot take it back.”

³⁶And she said, “Father, if you have made a vow to the LORD, you must do to me what you have vowed, for the LORD has given you a great victory over your enemies, the Ammonites.

³⁷But first let me do this one thing: Let me go up and roam in the hills and weep with my friends for two months, because I will die a virgin.”

³⁸“You may go,” Jephthah said. And he sent her away for two months. She and her friends went into the hills and wept because she would never have children.

³⁹When she returned home, her father kept the vow he had made, and she died a virgin. So it has become a custom in Israel

⁴⁰for young Israelite women to go away for four days each year to lament the fate of Jephthah’s daughter.

¹Come here and listen, O nations of the earth. Let the world and everything in it hear my words.

²For the LORD is enraged against the nations. His fury is against all their armies. He will completely destroy them, dooming them to slaughter.

³Their dead will be left unburied, and the stench of rotting bodies will fill the land. The mountains will flow with their blood.

⁴The heavens above will melt away and disappear like a rolled-up scroll. The stars will fall from the sky like withered leaves from a grapevine, or shriveled figs from a fig tree.

⁵And when my sword has finished its work in the heavens, it will fall upon Edom, the nation I have marked for destruction.

⁶The sword of the LORD is drenched with blood and covered with fat — with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of rams prepared for sacrifice. Yes, the LORD will offer a sacrifice in the city of Bozrah. He will make a mighty slaughter in Edom.

⁷Even men as strong as wild oxen will die — the young men alongside the veterans. The land will be soaked with blood and the soil enriched with fat.

⁸For it is the day of the LORD’s revenge, the year when Edom will be paid back for all it did to Israel.

⁹The streams of Edom will be filled with burning pitch, and the ground will be covered with fire.

¹⁰This judgment on Edom will never end; the smoke of its burning will rise forever. The land will lie deserted from generation to generation. No one will live there anymore.

¹¹It will be haunted by the desert owl and the screech owl, the great owl and the raven. For God will measure that land carefully; he will measure it for chaos and destruction.

¹²It will be called the Land of Nothing, and all its nobles will soon be gone.

¹³Thorns will overrun its palaces; nettles and thistles will grow in its forts. The ruins will become a haunt for jackals and a home for owls.

¹⁴Desert animals will mingle there with hyenas, their howls filling the night. Wild goats will bleat at one another among the ruins, and night creatures will come there to rest.

¹⁵There the owl will make her nest and lay her eggs. She will hatch her young and cover them with her wings. And the buzzards will come, each one with its mate.

¹⁶Search the book of the LORD, and see what he will do. Not one of these birds and animals will be missing, and none will lack a mate, for the LORD has promised this. His Spirit will make it all come true.

¹⁷He has surveyed and divided the land and deeded it over to those creatures. They will possess it forever, from generation to generation.

¹While Peter and John were speaking to the people, they were confronted by the priests, the captain of the Temple guard, and some of the Sadducees.

²These leaders were very disturbed that Peter and John were teaching the people that through Jesus there is a resurrection of the dead.

³They arrested them and, since it was already evening, put them in jail until morning.

⁴But many of the people who heard their message believed it, so the number of men who believed now totaled about 5,000.

⁵The next day the council of all the rulers and elders and teachers of religious law met in Jerusalem.

⁶Annas the high priest was there, along with Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and other relatives of the high priest.

⁷They brought in the two disciples and demanded, “By what power, or in whose name, have you done this?”

⁸Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers and elders of our people,

⁹are we being questioned today because we’ve done a good deed for a crippled man? Do you want to know how he was healed?

¹⁰Let me clearly state to all of you and to all the people of Israel that he was healed by the powerful name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, the man you crucified but whom God raised from the dead.

¹¹For Jesus is the one referred to in the Scriptures, where it says, ‘The stone that you builders rejected has now become the cornerstone.’

¹²There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved.”

¹³The members of the council were amazed when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, for they could see that they were ordinary men with no special training in the Scriptures. They also recognized them as men who had been with Jesus.

¹⁴But since they could see the man who had been healed standing right there among them, there was nothing the council could say.

¹⁵So they ordered Peter and John out of the council chamber and conferred among themselves.

¹⁶“What should we do with these men?” they asked each other. “We can’t deny that they have performed a miraculous sign, and everybody in Jerusalem knows about it.

¹⁷But to keep them from spreading their propaganda any further, we must warn them not to speak to anyone in Jesus’ name again.”

¹⁸So they called the apostles back in and commanded them never again to speak or teach in the name of Jesus.

¹⁹But Peter and John replied, “Do you think God wants us to obey you rather than him?

²⁰We cannot stop telling about everything we have seen and heard.”

²¹The council then threatened them further, but they finally let them go because they didn’t know how to punish them without starting a riot. For everyone was praising God

²²for this miraculous sign — the healing of a man who had been lame for more than forty years.

²³As soon as they were freed, Peter and John returned to the other believers and told them what the leading priests and elders had said.

²⁴When they heard the report, all the believers lifted their voices together in prayer to God: “O Sovereign Lord, Creator of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them —

²⁵you spoke long ago by the Holy Spirit through our ancestor David, your servant, saying, ‘Why were the nations so angry? Why did they waste their time with futile plans?

²⁶The kings of the earth prepared for battle; the rulers gathered together against the LORD and against his Messiah.’

²⁷“In fact, this has happened here in this very city! For Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate the governor, the Gentiles, and the people of Israel were all united against Jesus, your holy servant, whom you anointed.

²⁸But everything they did was determined beforehand according to your will.

²⁹And now, O Lord, hear their threats, and give us, your servants, great boldness in preaching your word.

³⁰Stretch out your hand with healing power; may miraculous signs and wonders be done through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”

³¹After this prayer, the meeting place shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Then they preached the word of God with boldness.

³²All the believers were united in heart and mind. And they felt that what they owned was not their own, so they shared everything they had.

³³The apostles testified powerfully to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and God’s great blessing was upon them all.

³⁴There were no needy people among them, because those who owned land or houses would sell them

³⁵and bring the money to the apostles to give to those in need.

³⁶For instance, there was Joseph, the one the apostles nicknamed Barnabas (which means “Son of Encouragement”). He was from the tribe of Levi and came from the island of Cyprus.

³⁷He sold a field he owned and brought the money to the apostles.