Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

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

²Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes.

³In these lay many invalids — blind, lame, and paralyzed.

⁴

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

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

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 making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.”

⁸Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.”

⁹At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. Now that day was a sabbath.

¹⁰So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, “It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.”

¹¹But he answered them, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’”

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

¹³Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there.

¹⁴Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.”

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

¹⁶Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath.

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

¹⁸For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.

¹⁹Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.

²⁰The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished.

²¹Indeed, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he wishes.

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

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

²⁴Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life.

²⁵“Very truly, I tell you, the 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.

²⁶For just 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 be astonished at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice

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

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

³¹“If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true.

³²There is another who testifies on my behalf, and I know that his testimony to me is true.

³³You sent messengers to John, and he testified to the truth.

³⁴Not that I accept such human testimony, 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 I have a testimony greater than John’s. The works that the Father has given me to complete, the very works that I am doing, testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me.

³⁷And the Father who sent me has himself testified on my behalf. You have never heard his voice or seen his form,

³⁸and you do not have his word abiding in you, because you do not believe him whom he has sent.

³⁹“You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf.

⁴⁰Yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

⁴¹I do not accept glory from human beings.

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

⁴³I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; if another comes in his own name, you will accept him.

⁴⁴How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the one who alone is God?

⁴⁵Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; your accuser is Moses, on whom you have set your hope.

⁴⁶If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.

⁴⁷But if you do not believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?”

¹The heads of the ancestral houses of the clans of the descendants of Gilead son of Machir son of Manasseh, of the Josephite clans, came forward and spoke in the presence of Moses and the leaders, the heads of the ancestral houses of the Israelites;

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

³But if they are married into another Israelite tribe, then their inheritance will be taken from the inheritance of our ancestors and added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they marry; so it will be taken away from the allotted portion of our inheritance.

⁴And when the jubilee of the Israelites comes, then their inheritance will be added to the inheritance of the tribe into which they have married; and their inheritance will be taken from the inheritance of our ancestral tribe.”

⁵Then Moses commanded the Israelites according to the word of the LORD, saying, “The descendants of the tribe of Joseph are right in what they are saying.

⁶This is what the LORD commands concerning the daughters of Zelophehad, ‘Let them marry whom they think best; only it must be into a clan of their father’s tribe that they are married,

⁷so that no inheritance of the Israelites shall be transferred from one tribe to another; for all Israelites shall retain the inheritance of their ancestral tribes.

⁸Every daughter who possesses an inheritance in any tribe of the Israelites shall marry one from the clan of her father’s tribe, so that all Israelites may continue to possess their ancestral inheritance.

⁹No inheritance shall be transferred from one tribe to another; for each of the tribes of the Israelites shall retain its own inheritance.’”

¹⁰The daughters of Zelophehad did as the LORD had commanded Moses.

¹¹Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah, the daughters of Zelophehad, married sons of their father’s brothers.

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

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

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

²You know that when you were pagans, you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak.

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

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

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

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

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

⁸To 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 discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.

¹¹All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

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

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

¹⁵If the foot would 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 would 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 the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?

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 members, 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 members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable,

²³and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect;

²⁴whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member,

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

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

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 deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, 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 in tongues? Do all interpret?

³¹But strive for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.

¹Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of the promise of 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 am grateful to God — whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did — when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day.

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

⁵I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.

⁶For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands;

⁷for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.

⁸Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God,

⁹who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began,

¹⁰but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

¹¹For this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher,

¹²and for this reason I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him.

¹³Hold to the standard of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

¹⁴Guard the good treasure entrusted to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us.

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

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

¹⁷when he arrived in Rome, he eagerly searched for me and found me

¹⁸— may the Lord grant that he will find mercy from the Lord on that day! And you know very well how much service he rendered in Ephesus.

¹“But now they make sport of me, those 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? All their vigor is gone.

³Through want and hard hunger they gnaw the dry and desolate ground,

⁴they pick mallow and the leaves of bushes, and to warm themselves the roots of broom.

⁵They are driven out from society; people shout after them as after a thief.

⁶In the gullies of wadis they must live, in holes in the ground, and in the rocks.

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

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

⁹“And now they mock me in 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 bowstring and humbled me, they have cast off restraint in my presence.

¹²On my right hand the rabble rise up; they send me sprawling, and build roads for my ruin.

¹³They break up my path, they promote my calamity; no one restrains 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 violence he seizes my garment; he grasps me by the collar of my tunic.

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

²⁰I cry to you and you do not answer me; I stand, and you merely 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.

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

²⁴“Surely one does not turn against the needy, when in disaster they cry for help.

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

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

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

²⁸I go about in sunless gloom; 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 desolate pit, 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.

⁴Happy are those who make the LORD their trust, who do not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after false gods.

⁵You have multiplied, O LORD my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you. Were I to proclaim and tell of them, they would be more than can be counted.

⁶Sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.

⁷Then I said, “Here I am; 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; see, I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O LORD.

¹⁰I have not hidden your saving help 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.

¹¹Do not, O LORD, withhold your mercy from me; let your steadfast love and your faithfulness keep me safe forever.

¹²For evils have encompassed me without number; my iniquities have overtaken me, until I cannot see; they are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails me.

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

¹⁴Let all those be put to shame and confusion who seek to snatch away my life; let those be turned back and brought to dishonor who desire 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. An oracle. Thus says the man: I am weary, O God, I am weary, O God. How can I prevail?

²Surely I am too stupid to be human; I do not have human understanding.

³I have not learned wisdom, nor have I knowledge of the holy ones.

⁴Who has ascended to heaven and come down? Who has gathered the wind in the hollow of the hand? Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is the person’s name? And what is the name of the person’s child? 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, or else he will rebuke you, and you will be found a liar.

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

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

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

¹⁰Do not slander a servant to a master, or the servant will curse you, and you will be held guilty.

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

¹²There are those who are pure in their own eyes yet are not cleansed of their filthiness.

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

¹⁴there are those whose teeth are swords, whose teeth are knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, the needy from among mortals.

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

¹⁶Sheol, the barren womb, the earth ever thirsty for water, and the fire that never says, “Enough.”

¹⁷The eye that mocks a father and scorns to obey a mother will be pecked 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 snake on a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas, and the way of a man with a girl.

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 glutted with food;

²³an unloved woman when she gets a husband, and a maid when she succeeds her mistress.

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

²⁵the ants are a people without strength, yet they provide their food in the summer;

²⁶the badgers are a people without power, yet they make their homes in the rocks;

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

²⁸the lizard can be grasped in the hand, yet it is found in kings’ palaces.

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

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

³¹the strutting rooster, the he-goat, and a king striding before his people.

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

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

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

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

³David sent someone to inquire about the woman. It was reported, “This is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.”

⁴So David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she was purifying herself after her period.) Then she returned to her house.

⁵The 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 and the people fared, and how the war was going.

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

⁹But Uriah slept at the entrance 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, “You have just come from a journey. Why did you not go down to your house?”

¹¹Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah remain 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 such a thing.”

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

¹³David invited him to eat and drink in his presence and 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, so that he may be struck down and die.”

¹⁶As Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were valiant warriors.

¹⁷The men of the city came out and fought with Joab; and some of the servants of David among the people fell. Uriah the Hittite was killed as well.

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

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

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 son of Jerubbaal? Did not a woman throw 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 too.’”

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 you shall say to Joab, ‘Do not let this matter trouble you, for the sword devours now one and now another; press your attack on the city, and overthrow it.’ And encourage him.”

²⁶When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she made lamentation for him.

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

¹The LORD showed me two baskets of figs placed before the temple of the LORD. This was after King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon had taken into exile from Jerusalem King Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim of Judah, together with the officials of Judah, the artisans, and the smiths, and had brought them to Babylon.

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:

⁵Thus 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 upon 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.

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

⁹I will make them a horror, an evil thing, to all the kingdoms of the earth — a disgrace, 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 are utterly destroyed from the land that I gave to them and their ancestors.

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.