Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

²Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades.

³In these lay a multitude of invalids — blind, lame, and paralyzed.

⁴

⁵One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.

⁶When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?”

⁷The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.”

⁸Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.”

⁹And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath.

¹⁰So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.”

¹¹But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’”

¹²They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?”

¹³Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place.

¹⁴Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.”

¹⁵The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.

¹⁶And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.

¹⁷But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”

¹⁸This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

¹⁹So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.

²⁰For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel.

²¹For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.

²² For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son,

²³that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.

²⁴Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

²⁵“Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.

²⁶ For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.

²⁷And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.

²⁸Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice

²⁹and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.

³⁰ “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.

³¹ If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not true.

³²There is another who bears witness about me, and I know that the testimony that he bears about me is true.

³³ You sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth.

³⁴Not that the testimony that I receive is from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved.

³⁵He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light.

³⁶But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me.

³⁷And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen,

³⁸and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent.

³⁹ You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,

⁴⁰yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.

⁴¹ I do not receive glory from people.

⁴²But I know that you do not have the love of God within you.

⁴³I have come in my Father's name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him.

⁴⁴How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?

⁴⁵Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope.

⁴⁶For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.

⁴⁷But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”

¹The heads of the fathers' houses of the clan of the people of Gilead the son of Machir, son of Manasseh, from the clans of the people of Joseph, came near and spoke before Moses and before the chiefs, the heads of the fathers' houses of the people of Israel.

²They said, “The LORD commanded my lord to give the land for inheritance by lot to the people of Israel, and my lord was commanded by the LORD to give the inheritance of Zelophehad our brother to his daughters.

³But if they are married to any of the sons of the other tribes of the people of Israel, then their inheritance will be taken from the inheritance of our fathers and added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry. So it will be taken away from the lot of our inheritance.

⁴And when the jubilee of the people of Israel comes, then their inheritance will be added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry, and their inheritance will be taken from the inheritance of the tribe of our fathers.”

⁵And Moses commanded the people of Israel according to the word of the LORD, saying, “The tribe of the people of Joseph is right.

⁶This is what the LORD commands concerning the daughters of Zelophehad: ‘Let them marry whom they think best, only they shall marry within the clan of the tribe of their father.

⁷The inheritance of the people of Israel shall not be transferred from one tribe to another, for every one of the people of Israel shall hold on to the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers.

⁸And every daughter who possesses an inheritance in any tribe of the people of Israel shall be wife to one of the clan of the tribe of her father, so that every one of the people of Israel may possess the inheritance of his fathers.

⁹So no inheritance shall be transferred from one tribe to another, for each of the tribes of the people of Israel shall hold on to its own inheritance.’”

¹⁰The daughters of Zelophehad did as the LORD commanded Moses,

¹¹for Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah, the daughters of Zelophehad, were married to sons of their father's brothers.

¹²They were married into the clans of the people of Manasseh the son of Joseph, and their inheritance remained in the tribe of their father's clan.

¹³These are the commandments and the rules that the LORD commanded through Moses to the people of Israel in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho.

¹Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed.

²You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led.

³Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.

⁴Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit;

⁵and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord;

⁶and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.

⁷To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

⁸For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit,

⁹to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit,

¹⁰to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.

¹¹All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.

¹²For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.

¹³For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

¹⁴For the body does not consist of one member but of many.

¹⁵If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body.

¹⁶And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body.

¹⁷If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?

¹⁸But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.

¹⁹If all were a single member, where would the body be?

²⁰As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

²¹The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”

²²On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable,

²³and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty,

²⁴which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it,

²⁵that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.

²⁶If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

²⁷Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

²⁸And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues.

²⁹Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles?

³⁰Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?

³¹But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.

¹Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God according to the promise of the life that is in Christ Jesus,

²To Timothy, my beloved child: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

³I thank God whom I serve, as did my ancestors, with a clear conscience, as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day.

⁴As I remember your tears, I long to see you, that I may be filled with joy.

⁵I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well.

⁶For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands,

⁷for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.

⁸Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God,

⁹who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began,

¹⁰and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,

¹¹for which I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher,

¹²which is why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me.

¹³Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

¹⁴By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.

¹⁵You are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes.

¹⁶May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains,

¹⁷but when he arrived in Rome he searched for me earnestly and found me —

¹⁸may the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that day! — and you well know all the service he rendered at Ephesus.

¹“But now they laugh at me, men who are younger than I, whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock.

²What could I gain from the strength of their hands, men whose vigor is gone?

³Through want and hard hunger they gnaw the dry ground by night in waste and desolation;

⁴they pick saltwort and the leaves of bushes, and the roots of the broom tree for their food.

⁵They are driven out from human company; they shout after them as after a thief.

⁶In the gullies of the torrents they must dwell, in holes of the earth and of the rocks.

⁷Among the bushes they bray; under the nettles they huddle together.

⁸A senseless, a nameless brood, they have been whipped out of the land.

⁹“And now I have become their song; I am a byword to them.

¹⁰They abhor me; they keep aloof from me; they do not hesitate to spit at the sight of me.

¹¹Because God has loosed my cord and humbled me, they have cast off restraint in my presence.

¹²On my right hand the rabble rise; they push away my feet; they cast up against me their ways of destruction.

¹³They break up my path; they promote my calamity; they need no one to help them.

¹⁴As through a wide breach they come; amid the crash they roll on.

¹⁵Terrors are turned upon me; my honor is pursued as by the wind, and my prosperity has passed away like a cloud.

¹⁶“And now my soul is poured out within me; days of affliction have taken hold of me.

¹⁷The night racks my bones, and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest.

¹⁸With great force my garment is disfigured; it binds me about like the collar of my tunic.

¹⁹God has cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes.

²⁰I cry to you for help and you do not answer me; I stand, and you only look at me.

²¹You have turned cruel to me; with the might of your hand you persecute me.

²²You lift me up on the wind; you make me ride on it, and you toss me about in the roar of the storm.

²³For I know that you will bring me to death and to the house appointed for all living.

²⁴“Yet does not one in a heap of ruins stretch out his hand, and in his disaster cry for help?

²⁵Did not I weep for him whose day was hard? Was not my soul grieved for the needy?

²⁶But when I hoped for good, evil came, and when I waited for light, darkness came.

²⁷My inward parts are in turmoil and never still; days of affliction come to meet me.

²⁸I go about darkened, but not by the sun; I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.

²⁹I am a brother of jackals and a companion of ostriches.

³⁰My skin turns black and falls from me, and my bones burn with heat.

³¹My lyre is turned to mourning, and my pipe to the voice of those who weep.

¹I waited patiently for the LORD; he inclined to me and heard my cry.

²He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.

³He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the LORD.

⁴Blessed is the man who makes the LORD his trust, who does not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after a lie!

⁵You have multiplied, O LORD my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you! I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told.

⁶In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.

⁷Then I said, “Behold, I have come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me:

⁸I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.”

⁹I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation; behold, I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O LORD.

¹⁰I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart; I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation; I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation.

¹¹As for you, O LORD, you will not restrain your mercy from me; your steadfast love and your faithfulness will ever preserve me!

¹²For evils have encompassed me beyond number; my iniquities have overtaken me, and I cannot see; they are more than the hairs of my head; my heart fails me.

¹³Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me! O LORD, make haste to help me!

¹⁴Let those be put to shame and disappointed altogether who seek to snatch away my life; let those be turned back and brought to dishonor who delight in my hurt!

¹⁵Let those be appalled because of their shame who say to me, “Aha, Aha!”

¹⁶But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation say continually, “Great is the LORD!”

¹⁷As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me. You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God!

¹The words of Agur son of Jakeh. The oracle. The man declares, I am weary, O God; I am weary, O God, and worn out.

²Surely I am too stupid to be a man. I have not the understanding of a man.

³I have not learned wisdom, nor have I knowledge of the Holy One.

⁴Who has ascended to heaven and come down? Who has gathered the wind in his fists? Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name, and what is his son's name? Surely you know!

⁵Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.

⁶Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.

⁷Two things I ask of you; deny them not to me before I die:

⁸Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me,

⁹lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the LORD?” or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.

¹⁰Do not slander a servant to his master, lest he curse you, and you be held guilty.

¹¹There are those who curse their fathers and do not bless their mothers.

¹²There are those who are clean in their own eyes but are not washed of their filth.

¹³There are those — how lofty are their eyes, how high their eyelids lift!

¹⁴There are those whose teeth are swords, whose fangs are knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, the needy from among mankind.

¹⁵The leech has two daughters: Give and Give. Three things are never satisfied; four never say, “Enough”:

¹⁶Sheol, the barren womb, the land never satisfied with water, and the fire that never says, “Enough.”

¹⁷The eye that mocks a father and scorns to obey a mother will be picked out by the ravens of the valley and eaten by the vultures.

¹⁸Three things are too wonderful for me; four I do not understand:

¹⁹the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a serpent on a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas, and the way of a man with a virgin.

²⁰This is the way of an adulteress: she eats and wipes her mouth and says, “I have done no wrong.”

²¹Under three things the earth trembles; under four it cannot bear up:

²²a slave when he becomes king, and a fool when he is filled with food;

²³an unloved woman when she gets a husband, and a maidservant when she displaces her mistress.

²⁴Four things on earth are small, but they are exceedingly wise:

²⁵the ants are a people not strong, yet they provide their food in the summer;

²⁶the rock badgers are a people not mighty, yet they make their homes in the cliffs;

²⁷the locusts have no king, yet all of them march in rank;

²⁸the lizard you can take in your hands, yet it is in kings' palaces.

²⁹Three things are stately in their tread; four are stately in their stride:

³⁰the lion, which is mightiest among beasts and does not turn back before any;

³¹the strutting rooster, the he-goat, and a king whose army is with him.

³²If you have been foolish, exalting yourself, or if you have been devising evil, put your hand on your mouth.

³³For pressing milk produces curds, pressing the nose produces blood, and pressing anger produces strife.

¹In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel. And they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.

²It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king's house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful.

³And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, “Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?”

⁴So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned to her house.

⁵And the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”

⁶So David sent word to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David.

⁷When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab was doing and how the people were doing and how the war was going.

⁸Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” And Uriah went out of the king's house, and there followed him a present from the king.

⁹But Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house.

¹⁰When they told David, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “Have you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house?”

¹¹Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah dwell in booths, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing.”

¹²Then David said to Uriah, “Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next.

¹³And David invited him, and he ate in his presence and drank, so that he made him drunk. And in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.

¹⁴In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah.

¹⁵In the letter he wrote, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, that he may be struck down, and die.”

¹⁶And as Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were valiant men.

¹⁷And the men of the city came out and fought with Joab, and some of the servants of David among the people fell. Uriah the Hittite also died.

¹⁸Then Joab sent and told David all the news about the fighting.

¹⁹And he instructed the messenger, “When you have finished telling all the news about the fighting to the king,

²⁰then, if the king's anger rises, and if he says to you, ‘Why did you go so near the city to fight? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall?

²¹Who killed Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth? Did not a woman cast an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died at Thebez? Why did you go so near the wall?’ then you shall say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.’”

²²So the messenger went and came and told David all that Joab had sent him to tell.

²³The messenger said to David, “The men gained an advantage over us and came out against us in the field, but we drove them back to the entrance of the gate.

²⁴Then the archers shot at your servants from the wall. Some of the king's servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.”

²⁵David said to the messenger, “Thus shall you say to Joab, ‘Do not let this matter displease you, for the sword devours now one and now another. Strengthen your attack against the city and overthrow it.’ And encourage him.”

²⁶When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she lamented over her husband.

²⁷And when the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD.

¹After Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken into exile from Jerusalem Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, together with the officials of Judah, the craftsmen, and the metal workers, and had brought them to Babylon, the LORD showed me this vision: behold, two baskets of figs placed before the temple of the LORD.

²One basket had very good figs, like first-ripe figs, but the other basket had very bad figs, so bad that they could not be eaten.

³And the LORD said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” I said, “Figs, the good figs very good, and the bad figs very bad, so bad that they cannot be eaten.”

⁴Then the word of the LORD came to me:

⁵“Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Like these good figs, so I will regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I have sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans.

⁶I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up, and not tear them down; I will plant them, and not pluck them up.

⁷I will give them a heart to know that I am the LORD, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.

⁸“But thus says the LORD: Like the bad figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten, so will I treat Zedekiah the king of Judah, his officials, the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt.

⁹I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a reproach, a byword, a taunt, and a curse in all the places where I shall drive them.

¹⁰And I will send sword, famine, and pestilence upon them, until they shall be utterly destroyed from the land that I gave to them and their fathers.”

¹And as they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them,

²greatly annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.

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

⁴But many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand.

⁵On the next day their rulers and elders and scribes gathered together in Jerusalem,

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

⁷And when they had set them in the 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 being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed,

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

¹¹This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.

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

¹³Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.

¹⁴But seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition.

¹⁵But when they had commanded them to leave the council, they conferred with one another,

¹⁶saying, “What shall we do with these men? For that a notable sign has been performed through them is evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it.

¹⁷But in order that it may spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name.”

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

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

²⁰for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.”

²¹And when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way to punish them, because of the people, for all were praising God for what had happened.

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

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

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

²⁵who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, “‘Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples plot in vain?

²⁶The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against his Anointed’ —

²⁷for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel,

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

²⁹And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue 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.”

³¹And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

³²Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common.

³³And with great power the apostles were giving 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 were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold

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

³⁶Thus Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus,

³⁷sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet.