Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹“I have said these things to you to keep you from stumbling.

²They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God.

³And they will do this because they have not known the Father or me.

⁴But I have said these things to you so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you about them. The Work of the Spirit “I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you.

⁵But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’

⁶But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts.

⁷Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.

⁸And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment:

⁹about sin, because they do not believe in me;

¹⁰about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer;

¹¹about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.

¹²“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

¹³When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

¹⁴He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

¹⁵All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

¹⁶“A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me.”

¹⁷Then some of his disciples said to one another, “What does he mean by saying to us, ‘A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’; and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?”

¹⁸They said, “What does he mean by this ‘a little while’? We do not know what he is talking about.”

¹⁹Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Are you discussing among yourselves what I meant when I said, ‘A little while, and you will no longer see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’?

²⁰Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy.

²¹When a woman is in labor, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world.

²²So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.

²³On that day you will ask nothing of me. Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.

²⁴Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.

²⁵“I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures, but will tell you plainly of the Father.

²⁶On that day you will ask in my name. I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf;

²⁷for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.

²⁸I came from the Father and have come into the world; again, I am leaving the world and am going to the Father.”

²⁹His disciples said, “Yes, now you are speaking plainly, not in any figure of speech!

³⁰Now we know that you know all things, and do not need to have anyone question you; by this we believe that you came from God.”

³¹Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe?

³²The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each one to his home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me.

³³I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!”

¹You shall love the LORD your God, therefore, and keep his charge, his decrees, his ordinances, and his commandments always.

²Remember today that it was not your children (who have not known or seen the discipline of the LORD your God), but it is you who must acknowledge his greatness, his mighty hand and his outstretched arm,

³his signs and his deeds that he did in Egypt to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and to all his land;

⁴what he did to the Egyptian army, to their horses and chariots, how he made the water of the Red Sea flow over them as they pursued you, so that the LORD has destroyed them to this day;

⁵what he did to you in the wilderness, until you came to this place;

⁶and what he did to Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab son of Reuben, how in the midst of all Israel the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, along with their households, their tents, and every living being in their company;

⁷for it is your own eyes that have seen every great deed that the LORD did.

⁸Keep, then, this entire commandment that I am commanding you today, so that you may have strength to go in and occupy the land that you are crossing over to occupy,

⁹and so that you may live long in the land that the LORD swore to your ancestors to give them and to their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.

¹⁰For the land that you are about to enter to occupy is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sow your seed and irrigate by foot like a vegetable garden.

¹¹But the land that you are crossing over to occupy is a land of hills and valleys, watered by rain from the sky,

¹²a land that the LORD your God looks after. The eyes of the LORD your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

¹³If you will only heed his every commandment that I am commanding you today — loving the LORD your God, and serving him with all your heart and with all your soul —

¹⁴then he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, and you will gather in your grain, your wine, and your oil;

¹⁵and he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you will eat your fill.

¹⁶Take care, or you will be seduced into turning away, serving other gods and worshiping them,

¹⁷for then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain and the land will yield no fruit; then you will perish quickly off the good land that the LORD is giving you.

¹⁸You shall put these words of mine in your heart and soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and fix them as an emblem on your forehead.

¹⁹Teach them to your children, talking about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.

²⁰Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates,

²¹so that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the LORD swore to your ancestors to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth.

²²If you will diligently observe this entire commandment that I am commanding you, loving the LORD your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him,

²³then the LORD will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations larger and mightier than yourselves.

²⁴Every place on which you set foot shall be yours; your territory shall extend from the wilderness to the Lebanon and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the Western Sea.

²⁵No one will be able to stand against you; the LORD your God will put the fear and dread of you on all the land on which you set foot, as he promised you.

²⁶See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse:

²⁷the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I am commanding you today;

²⁸and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn from the way that I am commanding you today, to follow other gods that you have not known.

²⁹When the LORD your God has brought you into the land that you are entering to occupy, you shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal.

³⁰As you know, they are beyond the Jordan, some distance to the west, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah, opposite Gilgal, beside the oak of Moreh.

³¹When you cross the Jordan to go in to occupy the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and when you occupy it and live in it,

³²you must diligently observe all the statutes and ordinances that I am setting before you today.

¹Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and of spirit, making holiness perfect in the fear of God.

²Make room in your hearts for us; we have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one, we have taken advantage of no one.

³I do not say this to condemn you, for I said before that you are in our hearts, to die together and to live together.

⁴I often boast about you; I have great pride in you; I am filled with consolation; I am overjoyed in all our affliction.

⁵For even when we came into Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted in every way — disputes without and fears within.

⁶But God, who consoles the downcast, consoled us by the arrival of Titus,

⁷and not only by his coming, but also by the consolation with which he was consoled about you, as he told us of your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced still more.

⁸For even if I made you sorry with my letter, I do not regret it (though I did regret it, for I see that I grieved you with that letter, though only briefly).

⁹Now I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because your grief led to repentance; for you felt a godly grief, so that you were not harmed in any way by us.

¹⁰For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret, but worldly grief produces death.

¹¹For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves guiltless in the matter.

¹²So although I wrote to you, it was not on account of the one who did the wrong, nor on account of the one who was wronged, but in order that your zeal for us might be made known to you before God.

¹³In this we find comfort. In addition to our own consolation, we rejoiced still more at the joy of Titus, because his mind has been set at rest by all of you.

¹⁴For if I have been somewhat boastful about you to him, I was not disgraced; but just as everything we said to you was true, so our boasting to Titus has proved true as well.

¹⁵And his heart goes out all the more to you, as he remembers the obedience of all of you, and how you welcomed him with fear and trembling.

¹⁶I rejoice, because I have complete confidence in you.

¹Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you?

²You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask.

³You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.

⁴Adulterers! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.

⁵Or do you suppose that it is for nothing that the scripture says, “God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”?

⁶But he gives all the more grace; therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

⁷Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

⁸Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

⁹Lament and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into dejection.

¹⁰Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

¹¹Do not speak evil against one another, brothers and sisters. Whoever speaks evil against another or judges another, speaks evil against the law and judges the law; but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.

¹²There is one lawgiver and judge who is able to save and to destroy. So who, then, are you to judge your neighbor?

¹³Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.”

¹⁴Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

¹⁵Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.”

¹⁶As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.

¹⁷Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin.

¹“Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook, or press down its tongue with a cord?

²Can you put a rope in its nose, or pierce its jaw with a hook?

³Will it make many supplications to you? Will it speak soft words to you?

⁴Will it make a covenant with you to be taken as your servant forever?

⁵Will you play with it as with a bird, or will you put it on leash for your girls?

⁶Will traders bargain over it? Will they divide it up among the merchants?

⁷Can you fill its skin with harpoons, or its head with fishing spears?

⁸Lay hands on it; think of the battle; you will not do it again!

⁹Any hope of capturing it will be disappointed; were not even the gods overwhelmed at the sight of it?

¹⁰No one is so fierce as to dare to stir it up. Who can stand before it?

¹¹Who can confront it and be safe? — under the whole heaven, who?

¹²“I will not keep silence concerning its limbs, or its mighty strength, or its splendid frame.

¹³Who can strip off its outer garment? Who can penetrate its double coat of mail?

¹⁴Who can open the doors of its face? There is terror all around its teeth.

¹⁵Its back is made of shields in rows, shut up closely as with a seal.

¹⁶One is so near to another that no air can come between them.

¹⁷They are joined one to another; they clasp each other and cannot be separated.

¹⁸Its sneezes flash forth light, and its eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn.

¹⁹From its mouth go flaming torches; sparks of fire leap out.

²⁰Out of its nostrils comes smoke, as from a boiling pot and burning rushes.

²¹Its breath kindles coals, and a flame comes out of its mouth.

²²In its neck abides strength, and terror dances before it.

²³The folds of its flesh cling together; it is firmly cast and immovable.

²⁴Its heart is as hard as stone, as hard as the lower millstone.

²⁵When it raises itself up the gods are afraid; at the crashing they are beside themselves.

²⁶Though the sword reaches it, it does not avail, nor does the spear, the dart, or the javelin.

²⁷It counts iron as straw, and bronze as rotten wood.

²⁸The arrow cannot make it flee; slingstones, for it, are turned to chaff.

²⁹Clubs are counted as chaff; it laughs at the rattle of javelins.

³⁰Its underparts are like sharp potsherds; it spreads itself like a threshing sledge on the mire.

³¹It makes the deep boil like a pot; it makes the sea like a pot of ointment.

³²It leaves a shining wake behind it; one would think the deep to be white-haired.

³³On earth it has no equal, a creature without fear.

³⁴It surveys everything that is lofty; it is king over all that are proud.”

¹Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.

²Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

³For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.

⁴Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.

⁵Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.

⁶You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.

⁷Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

⁸Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.

⁹Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.

¹⁰Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.

¹¹Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.

¹²Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.

¹³Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.

¹⁴Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance.

¹⁵O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.

¹⁶For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.

¹⁷The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

¹⁸Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem,

¹⁹then you will delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.

¹The proverbs of Solomon. A wise child makes a glad father, but a foolish child is a mother’s grief.

²Treasures gained by wickedness do not profit, but righteousness delivers from death.

³The LORD does not let the righteous go hungry, but he thwarts the craving of the wicked.

⁴A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.

⁵A child who gathers in summer is prudent, but a child who sleeps in harvest brings shame.

⁶Blessings are on the head of the righteous, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.

⁷The memory of the righteous is a blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot.

⁸The wise of heart will heed commandments, but a babbling fool will come to ruin.

⁹Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but whoever follows perverse ways will be found out.

¹⁰Whoever winks the eye causes trouble, but the one who rebukes boldly makes peace.

¹¹The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.

¹²Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.

¹³On the lips of one who has understanding wisdom is found, but a rod is for the back of one who lacks sense.

¹⁴The wise lay up knowledge, but the babbling of a fool brings ruin near.

¹⁵The wealth of the rich is their fortress; the poverty of the poor is their ruin.

¹⁶The wage of the righteous leads to life, the gain of the wicked to sin.

¹⁷Whoever heeds instruction is on the path to life, but one who rejects a rebuke goes astray.

¹⁸Lying lips conceal hatred, and whoever utters slander is a fool.

¹⁹When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but the prudent are restrained in speech.

²⁰The tongue of the righteous is choice silver; the mind of the wicked is of little worth.

²¹The lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for lack of sense.

²²The blessing of the LORD makes rich, and he adds no sorrow with it.

²³Doing wrong is like sport to a fool, but wise conduct is pleasure to a person of understanding.

²⁴What the wicked dread will come upon them, but the desire of the righteous will be granted.

²⁵When the tempest passes, the wicked are no more, but the righteous are established forever.

²⁶Like vinegar to the teeth, and smoke to the eyes, so are the lazy to their employers.

²⁷The fear of the LORD prolongs life, but the years of the wicked will be short.

²⁸The hope of the righteous ends in gladness, but the expectation of the wicked comes to nothing.

²⁹The way of the LORD is a stronghold for the upright, but destruction for evildoers.

³⁰The righteous will never be removed, but the wicked will not remain in the land.

³¹The mouth of the righteous brings forth wisdom, but the perverse tongue will be cut off.

³²The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable, but the mouth of the wicked what is perverse.

¹David spoke to the LORD the words of this song on the day when the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul.

²He said: The LORD is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer,

³my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold and my refuge, my savior; you save me from violence.

⁴I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies.

⁵For the waves of death encompassed me, the torrents of perdition assailed me;

⁶the cords of Sheol entangled me, the snares of death confronted me.

⁷In my distress I called upon the LORD; to my God I called. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry came to his ears.

⁸Then the earth reeled and rocked; the foundations of the heavens trembled and quaked, because he was angry.

⁹Smoke went up from his nostrils, and devouring fire from his mouth; glowing coals flamed forth from him.

¹⁰He bowed the heavens, and came down; thick darkness was under his feet.

¹¹He rode on a cherub, and flew; he was seen upon the wings of the wind.

¹²He made darkness around him a canopy, thick clouds, a gathering of water.

¹³Out of the brightness before him coals of fire flamed forth.

¹⁴The LORD thundered from heaven; the Most High uttered his voice.

¹⁵He sent out arrows, and scattered them — lightning, and routed them.

¹⁶Then the channels of the sea were seen, the foundations of the world were laid bare at the rebuke of the LORD, at the blast of the breath of his nostrils.

¹⁷He reached from on high, he took me, he drew me out of mighty waters.

¹⁸He delivered me from my strong enemy, from those who hated me; for they were too mighty for me.

¹⁹They came upon me in the day of my calamity, but the LORD was my stay.

²⁰He brought me out into a broad place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me.

²¹The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he recompensed me.

²²For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God.

²³For all his ordinances were before me, and from his statutes I did not turn aside.

²⁴I was blameless before him, and I kept myself from guilt.

²⁵Therefore the LORD has recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to my cleanness in his sight.

²⁶With the loyal you show yourself loyal; with the blameless you show yourself blameless;

²⁷with the pure you show yourself pure, and with the crooked you show yourself perverse.

²⁸You deliver a humble people, but your eyes are upon the haughty to bring them down.

²⁹Indeed, you are my lamp, O LORD, the LORD lightens my darkness.

³⁰By you I can crush a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall.

³¹This God — his way is perfect; the promise of the LORD proves true; he is a shield for all who take refuge in him.

³²For who is God, but the LORD? And who is a rock, except our God?

³³The God who has girded me with strength has opened wide my path.

³⁴He made my feet like the feet of deer, and set me secure on the heights.

³⁵He trains my hands for war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.

³⁶You have given me the shield of your salvation, and your help has made me great.

³⁷You have made me stride freely, and my feet do not slip;

³⁸I pursued my enemies and destroyed them, and did not turn back until they were consumed.

³⁹I consumed them; I struck them down, so that they did not rise; they fell under my feet.

⁴⁰For you girded me with strength for the battle; you made my assailants sink under me.

⁴¹You made my enemies turn their backs to me, those who hated me, and I destroyed them.

⁴²They looked, but there was no one to save them; they cried to the LORD, but he did not answer them.

⁴³I beat them fine like the dust of the earth, I crushed them and stamped them down like the mire of the streets.

⁴⁴You delivered me from strife with the peoples; you kept me as the head of the nations; people whom I had not known served me.

⁴⁵Foreigners came cringing to me; as soon as they heard of me, they obeyed me.

⁴⁶Foreigners lost heart, and came trembling out of their strongholds.

⁴⁷The LORD lives! Blessed be my rock, and exalted be my God, the rock of my salvation,

⁴⁸the God who gave me vengeance and brought down peoples under me,

⁴⁹who brought me out from my enemies; you exalted me above my adversaries, you delivered me from the violent.

⁵⁰For this I will extol you, O LORD, among the nations, and sing praises to your name.

⁵¹He is a tower of salvation for his king, and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his descendants forever.

¹The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD in the days of King Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah:

²Go to the house of the Rechabites, and speak with them, and bring them to the house of the LORD, into one of the chambers; then offer them wine to drink.

³So I took Jaazaniah son of Jeremiah son of Habazziniah, and his brothers, and all his sons, and the whole house of the Rechabites.

⁴I brought them to the house of the LORD into the chamber of the sons of Hanan son of Igdaliah, the man of God, which was near the chamber of the officials, above the chamber of Maaseiah son of Shallum, keeper of the threshold.

⁵Then I set before the Rechabites pitchers full of wine, and cups; and I said to them, “Have some wine.”

⁶But they answered, “We will drink no wine, for our ancestor Jonadab son of Rechab commanded us, ‘You shall never drink wine, neither you nor your children;

⁷nor shall you ever build a house, or sow seed; nor shall you plant a vineyard, or even own one; but you shall live in tents all your days, that you may live many days in the land where you reside.’

⁸We have obeyed the charge of our ancestor Jonadab son of Rechab in all that he commanded us, to drink no wine all our days, ourselves, our wives, our sons, or our daughters,

⁹and not to build houses to live in. We have no vineyard or field or seed;

¹⁰but we have lived in tents, and have obeyed and done all that our ancestor Jonadab commanded us.

¹¹But when King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon came up against the land, we said, ‘Come, and let us go to Jerusalem for fear of the army of the Chaldeans and the army of the Arameans.’ That is why we are living in Jerusalem.”

¹²Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah:

¹³Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Go and say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Can you not learn a lesson and obey my words? says the LORD.

¹⁴The command has been carried out that Jonadab son of Rechab gave to his descendants to drink no wine; and they drink none to this day, for they have obeyed their ancestor’s command. But I myself have spoken to you persistently, and you have not obeyed me.

¹⁵I have sent to you all my servants the prophets, sending them persistently, saying, “Turn now every one of you from your evil way, and amend your doings, and do not go after other gods to serve them, and then you shall live in the land that I gave to you and your ancestors.” But you did not incline your ear or obey me.

¹⁶The descendants of Jonadab son of Rechab have carried out the command that their ancestor gave them, but this people has not obeyed me.

¹⁷Therefore, thus says the LORD, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to bring on Judah and on all the inhabitants of Jerusalem every disaster that I have pronounced against them; because I have spoken to them and they have not listened, I have called to them and they have not answered.

¹⁸But to the house of the Rechabites Jeremiah said: Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Because you have obeyed the command of your ancestor Jonadab, and kept all his precepts, and done all that he commanded you,

¹⁹therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Jonadab son of Rechab shall not lack a descendant to stand before me for all time.

¹Then certain individuals came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”

²And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to discuss this question with the apostles and the elders.

³So they were sent on their way by the church, and as they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, they reported the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the believers.

⁴When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them.

⁵But some believers who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees stood up and said, “It is necessary for them to be circumcised and ordered to keep the law of Moses.”

⁶The apostles and the elders met together to consider this matter.

⁷After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “My brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that I should be the one through whom the Gentiles would hear the message of the good news and become believers.

⁸And God, who knows the human heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us;

⁹and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us.

¹⁰Now therefore why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear?

¹¹On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

¹²The whole assembly kept silence, and listened to Barnabas and Paul as they told of all the signs and wonders that God had done through them among the Gentiles.

¹³After they finished speaking, James replied, “My brothers, listen to me.

¹⁴Simeon has related how God first looked favorably on the Gentiles, to take from among them a people for his name.

¹⁵This agrees with the words of the prophets, as it is written,

¹⁶‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the dwelling of David, which has fallen; from its ruins I will rebuild it, and I will set it up,

¹⁷so that all other peoples may seek the Lord — even all the Gentiles over whom my name has been called. Thus says the Lord, who has been making these things

¹⁸known from long ago.’

¹⁹Therefore I have reached the decision that we should not trouble those Gentiles who are turning to God,

²⁰but we should write to them to abstain only from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from whatever has been strangled and from blood.

²¹For in every city, for generations past, Moses has had those who proclaim him, for he has been read aloud every sabbath in the synagogues.”

²²Then the apostles and the elders, with the consent of the whole church, decided to choose men from among their members and to send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leaders among the brothers,

²³with the following letter: “The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the believers of Gentile origin in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings.

²⁴Since we have heard that certain persons who have gone out from us, though with no instructions from us, have said things to disturb you and have unsettled your minds,

²⁵we have decided unanimously to choose representatives and send them to you, along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul,

²⁶who have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ.

²⁷We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth.

²⁸For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials:

²⁹that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”

³⁰So they were sent off and went down to Antioch. When they gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter.

³¹When its members read it, they rejoiced at the exhortation.

³²Judas and Silas, who were themselves prophets, said much to encourage and strengthen the believers.

³³After they had been there for some time, they were sent off in peace by the believers to those who had sent them.

³⁴

³⁵But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, and there, with many others, they taught and proclaimed the word of the Lord.

³⁶After some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Come, let us return and visit the believers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.”

³⁷Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark.

³⁸But Paul decided not to take with them one who had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not accompanied them in the work.

³⁹The disagreement became so sharp that they parted company; Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus.

⁴⁰But Paul chose Silas and set out, the believers commending him to the grace of the Lord.

⁴¹He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.