Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain, by themselves.

²And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became dazzling white.

³Suddenly there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.

⁴Then Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

⁵While he was still speaking, suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”

⁶When the disciples heard this, they fell to the ground and were overcome by fear.

⁷But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Get up and do not be afraid.”

⁸And when they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus himself alone.

⁹As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus ordered them, “Tell no one about the vision until after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

¹⁰And the disciples asked him, “Why, then, do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?”

¹¹He replied, “Elijah is indeed coming and will restore all things;

¹²but I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but they did to him whatever they pleased. So also the Son of Man is about to suffer at their hands.”

¹³Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them about John the Baptist.

¹⁴When they came to the crowd, a man came to him, knelt before him,

¹⁵and said, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly; he often falls into the fire and often into the water.

¹⁶And I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him.”

¹⁷Jesus answered, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him here to me.”

¹⁸And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly.

¹⁹Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?”

²⁰He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”

²¹

²²As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands,

²³and they will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised.” And they were greatly distressed.

²⁴When they reached Capernaum, the collectors of the temple tax came to Peter and said, “Does your teacher not pay the temple tax?”

²⁵He said, “Yes, he does.” And when he came home, Jesus spoke of it first, asking, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tribute? From their children or from others?”

²⁶When Peter said, “From others,” Jesus said to him, “Then the children are free.

²⁷However, so that we do not give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook; take the first fish that comes up; and when you open its mouth, you will find a coin; take that and give it to them for you and me.”

¹This is the ritual of the guilt offering. It is most holy;

²at the spot where the burnt offering is slaughtered, they shall slaughter the guilt offering, and its blood shall be dashed against all sides of the altar.

³All its fat shall be offered: the broad tail, the fat that covers the entrails,

⁴the two kidneys with the fat that is on them at the loins, and the appendage of the liver, which shall be removed with the kidneys.

⁵The priest shall turn them into smoke on the altar as an offering by fire to the LORD; it is a guilt offering.

⁶Every male among the priests shall eat of it; it shall be eaten in a holy place; it is most holy.

⁷The guilt offering is like the sin offering, there is the same ritual for them; the priest who makes atonement with it shall have it.

⁸So, too, the priest who offers anyone’s burnt offering shall keep the skin of the burnt offering that he has offered.

⁹And every grain offering baked in the oven, and all that is prepared in a pan or on a griddle, shall belong to the priest who offers it.

¹⁰But every other grain offering, mixed with oil or dry, shall belong to all the sons of Aaron equally.

¹¹This is the ritual of the sacrifice of the offering of well-being that one may offer to the LORD.

¹²If you offer it for thanksgiving, you shall offer with the thank offering unleavened cakes mixed with oil, unleavened wafers spread with oil, and cakes of choice flour well soaked in oil.

¹³With your thanksgiving sacrifice of well-being you shall bring your offering with cakes of leavened bread.

¹⁴From this you shall offer one cake from each offering, as a gift to the LORD; it shall belong to the priest who dashes the blood of the offering of well-being.

¹⁵And the flesh of your thanksgiving sacrifice of well-being shall be eaten on the day it is offered; you shall not leave any of it until morning.

¹⁶But if the sacrifice you offer is a votive offering or a freewill offering, it shall be eaten on the day that you offer your sacrifice, and what is left of it shall be eaten the next day;

¹⁷but what is left of the flesh of the sacrifice shall be burned up on the third day.

¹⁸If any of the flesh of your sacrifice of well-being is eaten on the third day, it shall not be acceptable, nor shall it be credited to the one who offers it; it shall be an abomination, and the one who eats of it shall incur guilt.

¹⁹Flesh that touches any unclean thing shall not be eaten; it shall be burned up. As for other flesh, all who are clean may eat such flesh.

²⁰But those who eat flesh from the LORD’s sacrifice of well-being while in a state of uncleanness shall be cut off from their kin.

²¹When any one of you touches any unclean thing — human uncleanness or an unclean animal or any unclean creature — and then eats flesh from the LORD’s sacrifice of well-being, you shall be cut off from your kin.

²²The LORD spoke to Moses, saying:

²³Speak to the people of Israel, saying: You shall eat no fat of ox or sheep or goat.

²⁴The fat of an animal that died or was torn by wild animals may be put to any other use, but you must not eat it.

²⁵If any one of you eats the fat from an animal of which an offering by fire may be made to the LORD, you who eat it shall be cut off from your kin.

²⁶You must not eat any blood whatever, either of bird or of animal, in any of your settlements.

²⁷Any one of you who eats any blood shall be cut off from your kin.

²⁸The LORD spoke to Moses, saying:

²⁹Speak to the people of Israel, saying: Any one of you who would offer to the LORD your sacrifice of well-being must yourself bring to the LORD your offering from your sacrifice of well-being.

³⁰Your own hands shall bring the LORD’s offering by fire; you shall bring the fat with the breast, so that the breast may be raised as an elevation offering before the LORD.

³¹The priest shall turn the fat into smoke on the altar, but the breast shall belong to Aaron and his sons.

³²And the right thigh from your sacrifices of well-being you shall give to the priest as an offering;

³³the one among the sons of Aaron who offers the blood and fat of the offering of well-being shall have the right thigh for a portion.

³⁴For I have taken the breast of the elevation offering, and the thigh that is offered, from the people of Israel, from their sacrifices of well-being, and have given them to Aaron the priest and to his sons, as a perpetual due from the people of Israel.

³⁵This is the portion allotted to Aaron and to his sons from the offerings made by fire to the LORD, once they have been brought forward to serve the LORD as priests;

³⁶these the LORD commanded to be given them, when he anointed them, as a perpetual due from the people of Israel throughout their generations.

³⁷This is the ritual of the burnt offering, the grain offering, the sin offering, the guilt offering, the offering of ordination, and the sacrifice of well-being,

³⁸which the LORD commanded Moses on Mount Sinai, when he commanded the people of Israel to bring their offerings to the LORD, in the wilderness of Sinai.

¹For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

²Listen! I, Paul, am telling you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you.

³Once again I testify to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obliged to obey the entire law.

⁴You who want to be justified by the law have cut yourselves off from Christ; you have fallen away from grace.

⁵For through the Spirit, by faith, we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.

⁶For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love.

⁷You were running well; who prevented you from obeying the truth?

⁸Such persuasion does not come from the one who calls you.

⁹A little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough.

¹⁰I am confident about you in the Lord that you will not think otherwise. But whoever it is that is confusing you will pay the penalty.

¹¹But my friends, why am I still being persecuted if I am still preaching circumcision? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed.

¹²I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves!

¹³For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another.

¹⁴For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

¹⁵If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

¹⁶Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.

¹⁷For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want.

¹⁸But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law.

¹⁹Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness,

²⁰idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions,

²¹envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

²²By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness,

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

²⁴And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

²⁵If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.

²⁶Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another.

¹My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?

²For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in,

³and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,”

⁴have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?

⁵Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?

⁶But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court?

⁷Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?

⁸You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

⁹But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

¹⁰For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.

¹¹For the one who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery but if you murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.

¹²So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty.

¹³For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.

¹⁴What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you?

¹⁵If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food,

¹⁶and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?

¹⁷So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

¹⁸But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith.

¹⁹You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe — and shudder.

²⁰Do you want to be shown, you senseless person, that faith apart from works is barren?

²¹Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar?

²²You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was brought to completion by the works.

²³Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God.

²⁴You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

²⁵Likewise, was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another road?

²⁶For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.

¹Elihu continued and said:

²“Bear with me a little, and I will show you, for I have yet something to say on God’s behalf.

³I will bring my knowledge from far away, and ascribe righteousness to my Maker.

⁴For truly my words are not false; one who is perfect in knowledge is with you.

⁵“Surely God is mighty and does not despise any; he is mighty in strength of understanding.

⁶He does not keep the wicked alive, but gives the afflicted their right.

⁷He does not withdraw his eyes from the righteous, but with kings on the throne he sets them forever, and they are exalted.

⁸And if they are bound in fetters and caught in the cords of affliction,

⁹then he declares to them their work and their transgressions, that they are behaving arrogantly.

¹⁰He opens their ears to instruction, and commands that they return from iniquity.

¹¹If they listen, and serve him, they complete their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasantness.

¹²But if they do not listen, they shall perish by the sword, and die without knowledge.

¹³“The godless in heart cherish anger; they do not cry for help when he binds them.

¹⁴They die in their youth, and their life ends in shame.

¹⁵He delivers the afflicted by their affliction, and opens their ear by adversity.

¹⁶He also allured you out of distress into a broad place where there was no constraint, and what was set on your table was full of fatness.

¹⁷“But you are obsessed with the case of the wicked; judgment and justice seize you.

¹⁸Beware that wrath does not entice you into scoffing, and do not let the greatness of the ransom turn you aside.

¹⁹Will your cry avail to keep you from distress, or will all the force of your strength?

²⁰Do not long for the night, when peoples are cut off in their place.

²¹Beware! Do not turn to iniquity; because of that you have been tried by affliction.

²²See, God is exalted in his power; who is a teacher like him?

²³Who has prescribed for him his way, or who can say, ‘You have done wrong’?

²⁴“Remember to extol his work, of which mortals have sung.

²⁵All people have looked on it; everyone watches it from far away.

²⁶Surely God is great, and we do not know him; the number of his years is unsearchable.

²⁷For he draws up the drops of water; he distills his mist in rain,

²⁸which the skies pour down and drop upon mortals abundantly.

²⁹Can anyone understand the spreading of the clouds, the thunderings of his pavilion?

³⁰See, he scatters his lightning around him and covers the roots of the sea.

³¹For by these he governs peoples; he gives food in abundance.

³²He covers his hands with the lightning, and commands it to strike the mark.

³³Its crashing tells about him; he is jealous with anger against iniquity.

¹Come, bless the LORD, all you servants of the LORD, who stand by night in the house of the LORD!

²Lift up your hands to the holy place, and bless the LORD.

³May the LORD, maker of heaven and earth, bless you from Zion.

¹My child, be attentive to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding,

²so that you may hold on to prudence, and your lips may guard knowledge.

³For the lips of a loose woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil;

⁴but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.

⁵Her feet go down to death; her steps follow the path to Sheol.

⁶She does not keep straight to the path of life; her ways wander, and she does not know it.

⁷And now, my child, listen to me, and do not depart from the words of my mouth.

⁸Keep your way far from her, and do not go near the door of her house;

⁹or you will give your honor to others, and your years to the merciless,

¹⁰and strangers will take their fill of your wealth, and your labors will go to the house of an alien;

¹¹and at the end of your life you will groan, when your flesh and body are consumed,

¹²and you say, “Oh, how I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof!

¹³I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors.

¹⁴Now I am at the point of utter ruin in the public assembly.”

¹⁵Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well.

¹⁶Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets?

¹⁷Let them be for yourself alone, and not for sharing with strangers.

¹⁸Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth,

¹⁹a lovely deer, a graceful doe. May her breasts satisfy you at all times; may you be intoxicated always by her love.

²⁰Why should you be intoxicated, my son, by another woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?

²¹For human ways are under the eyes of the LORD, and he examines all their paths.

²²The iniquities of the wicked ensnare them, and they are caught in the toils of their sin.

²³They die for lack of discipline, and because of their great folly they are lost.

¹Now Jephthah the Gileadite, the son of a prostitute, was a mighty warrior. Gilead was the father of Jephthah.

²Gilead’s wife also bore him sons; and when his wife’s sons grew up, they drove Jephthah away, saying to him, “You shall not inherit anything in our father’s house; for you are the son of another woman.”

³Then Jephthah fled from his brothers and lived in the land of Tob. Outlaws collected around Jephthah and went raiding with him.

⁴After a time the Ammonites made war against Israel.

⁵And when the Ammonites made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to bring Jephthah from the land of Tob.

⁶They said to Jephthah, “Come and be our commander, so that we may fight with the Ammonites.”

⁷But Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “Are you not the very ones who rejected me and drove me out of my father’s house? So why do you come to me now when you are in trouble?”

⁸The elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “Nevertheless, we have now turned back to you, so that you may go with us and fight with the Ammonites, and become head over us, over all the inhabitants of Gilead.”

⁹Jephthah said to the elders of Gilead, “If you bring me home again to fight with the Ammonites, and the LORD gives them over to me, I will be your head.”

¹⁰And the elders of Gilead said to Jephthah, “The LORD will be witness between us; we will surely do as you say.”

¹¹So Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and commander over them; and Jephthah spoke all his words before the LORD at Mizpah.

¹²Then Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites and said, “What is there between you and me, that you have come to me to fight against my land?”

¹³The king of the Ammonites answered the messengers of Jephthah, “Because Israel, on coming from Egypt, took away my land from the Arnon to the Jabbok and to the Jordan; now therefore restore it peaceably.”

¹⁴Once again Jephthah sent messengers to the king of the Ammonites

¹⁵and said to him: “Thus says Jephthah: Israel did not take away the land of Moab or the land of the Ammonites,

¹⁶but when they came up from Egypt, Israel went through the wilderness to the Red Sea and came to Kadesh.

¹⁷Israel then sent messengers to the king of Edom, saying, ‘Let us pass through your land’; but the king of Edom would not listen. They also sent to the king of Moab, but he would not consent. So Israel remained at Kadesh.

¹⁸Then they journeyed through the wilderness, went around the land of Edom and the land of Moab, arrived on the east side of the land of Moab, and camped on the other side of the Arnon. They did not enter the territory of Moab, for the Arnon was the boundary of Moab.

¹⁹Israel then sent messengers to King Sihon of the Amorites, king of Heshbon; and Israel said to him, ‘Let us pass through your land to our country.’

²⁰But Sihon did not trust Israel to pass through his territory; so Sihon gathered all his people together, and encamped at Jahaz, and fought with Israel.

²¹Then the LORD, the God of Israel, gave Sihon and all his people into the hand of Israel, and they defeated them; so Israel occupied all the land of the Amorites, who inhabited that country.

²²They occupied all the territory of the Amorites from the Arnon to the Jabbok and from the wilderness to the Jordan.

²³So now the LORD, the God of Israel, has conquered the Amorites for the benefit of his people Israel. Do you intend to take their place?

²⁴Should you not possess what your god Chemosh gives you to possess? And should we not be the ones to possess everything that the LORD our God has conquered for our benefit?

²⁵Now are you any better than King Balak son of Zippor of Moab? Did he ever enter into conflict with Israel, or did he ever go to war with them?

²⁶While Israel lived in Heshbon and its villages, and in Aroer and its villages, and in all the towns that are along the Arnon, three hundred years, why did you not recover them within that time?

²⁷It is not I who have sinned against you, but you are the one who does me wrong by making war on me. Let the LORD, who is judge, decide today for the Israelites or for the Ammonites.”

²⁸But the king of the Ammonites did not heed the message that Jephthah sent him.

²⁹Then the spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah, and he passed through Gilead and Manasseh. He passed on to Mizpah of Gilead, and from Mizpah of Gilead he passed on to the Ammonites.

³⁰And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD, and said, “If you will give the Ammonites into my hand,

³¹then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the LORD’s, to be offered up by me as a burnt offering.”

³²So Jephthah crossed over to the Ammonites to fight against them; and the LORD gave them into his hand.

³³He inflicted a massive defeat on them from Aroer to the neighborhood of Minnith, twenty towns, and as far as Abel-keramim. So the Ammonites were subdued before the people of Israel.

³⁴Then Jephthah came to his home at Mizpah; and there was his daughter coming out to meet him with timbrels and with dancing. She was his only child; he had no son or daughter except her.

³⁵When he saw her, he tore his clothes, and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low; you have become the cause of great trouble to me. For I have opened my mouth to the LORD, and I cannot take back my vow.”

³⁶She said to him, “My father, if you have opened your mouth to the LORD, do to me according to what has gone out of your mouth, now that the LORD has given you vengeance against your enemies, the Ammonites.”

³⁷And she said to her father, “Let this thing be done for me: Grant me two months, so that I may go and wander on the mountains, and bewail my virginity, my companions and I.”

³⁸“Go,” he said and sent her away for two months. So she departed, she and her companions, and bewailed her virginity on the mountains.

³⁹At the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to the vow he had made. She had never slept with a man. So there arose an Israelite custom that

⁴⁰for four days every year the daughters of Israel would go out to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.

¹Draw near, O nations, to hear; O peoples, give heed! Let the earth hear, and all that fills it; the world, and all that comes from it.

²For the LORD is enraged against all the nations, and furious against all their hordes; he has doomed them, has given them over for slaughter.

³Their slain shall be cast out, and the stench of their corpses shall rise; the mountains shall flow with their blood.

⁴All the host of heaven shall rot away, and the skies roll up like a scroll. All their host shall wither like a leaf withering on a vine, or fruit withering on a fig tree.

⁵When my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens, lo, it will descend upon Edom, upon the people I have doomed to judgment.

⁶The LORD has a sword; it is sated with blood, it is gorged with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah, a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

⁷Wild oxen shall fall with them, and young steers with the mighty bulls. Their land shall be soaked with blood, and their soil made rich with fat.

⁸For the LORD has a day of vengeance, a year of vindication by Zion’s cause.

⁹And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and her soil into sulfur; her land shall become burning pitch.

¹⁰Night and day it shall not be quenched; its smoke shall go up forever. From generation to generation it shall lie waste; no one shall pass through it forever and ever.

¹¹But the hawk and the hedgehog shall possess it; the owl and the raven shall live in it. He shall stretch the line of confusion over it, and the plummet of chaos over its nobles.

¹²They shall name it No Kingdom There, and all its princes shall be nothing.

¹³Thorns shall grow over its strongholds, nettles and thistles in its fortresses. It shall be the haunt of jackals, an abode for ostriches.

¹⁴Wildcats shall meet with hyenas, goat-demons shall call to each other; there too Lilith shall repose, and find a place to rest.

¹⁵There shall the owl nest and lay and hatch and brood in its shadow; there too the buzzards shall gather, each one with its mate.

¹⁶Seek and read from the book of the LORD: Not one of these shall be missing; none shall be without its mate. For the mouth of the LORD has commanded, and his spirit has gathered them.

¹⁷He has cast the lot for them, his hand has portioned it out to them with the line; they shall possess it forever, from generation to generation they shall live in it.

¹While Peter and John were speaking to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came to them,

²much annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming that in Jesus there is the resurrection of the dead.

³So they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening.

⁴But many of those who heard the word believed; and they numbered about five thousand.

⁵The next day their rulers, elders, and scribes assembled in Jerusalem,

⁶with Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family.

⁷When they had made the prisoners stand in their midst, they inquired, “By what power or by what name did you do this?”

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

⁹if we are questioned today because of a good deed done to someone who was sick and are asked how this man has been healed,

¹⁰let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead.

¹¹This Jesus is ‘the stone that was rejected by you, the builders; it has become the cornerstone.’

¹²There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.”

¹³Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and ordinary men, they were amazed and recognized them as companions of Jesus.

¹⁴When they saw the man who had been cured standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition.

¹⁵So they ordered them to leave the council while they discussed the matter with one another.

¹⁶They said, “What will we do with them? For it is obvious to all who live in Jerusalem that a notable sign has been done through them; we cannot deny it.

¹⁷But to keep it from spreading further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name.”

¹⁸So they called them and ordered them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.

¹⁹But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in God’s sight to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge;

²⁰for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

²¹After threatening them again, they let them go, finding no way to punish them because of the people, for all of them praised God for what had happened.

²²For the man on whom this sign of healing had been performed was more than forty years old.

²³After they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them.

²⁴When they heard it, they raised their voices together to God and said, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth, the sea, and everything in them,

²⁵it is you who said by the Holy Spirit through our ancestor David, your servant: ‘Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples imagine vain things?

²⁶The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers have gathered together against the Lord and against his Messiah.’

²⁷For in this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed,

²⁸to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.

²⁹And now, Lord, look at their threats, and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness,

³⁰while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”

³¹When they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness.

³²Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.

³³With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.

³⁴There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold.

³⁵They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.

³⁶There was a Levite, a native of Cyprus, Joseph, to whom the apostles gave the name Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”).

³⁷He sold a field that belonged to him, then brought the money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet.