Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹He left that place and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan. And crowds again gathered around him; and, as was his custom, he again taught them.

²Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

³He answered them, “What did Moses command you?”

⁴They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.”

⁵But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you.

⁶But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’

⁷‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife,

⁸and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh.

⁹Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

¹⁰Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter.

¹¹He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her;

¹²and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

¹³People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them.

¹⁴But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.

¹⁵Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”

¹⁶And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.

¹⁷As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

¹⁸Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.

¹⁹You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’”

²⁰He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.”

²¹Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

²²When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

²³Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!”

²⁴And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!

²⁵It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

²⁶They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?”

²⁷Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”

²⁸Peter began to say to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.”

²⁹Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news,

³⁰who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age — houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions — and in the age to come eternal life.

³¹But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

³²They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. He took the twelve aside again and began to tell them what was to happen to him,

³³saying, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles;

³⁴they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.”

³⁵James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”

³⁶And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?”

³⁷And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.”

³⁸But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”

³⁹They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized;

⁴⁰but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”

⁴¹When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John.

⁴²So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them.

⁴³But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant,

⁴⁴and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.

⁴⁵For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

⁴⁶They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside.

⁴⁷When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

⁴⁸Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

⁴⁹Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.”

⁵⁰So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus.

⁵¹Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.”

⁵²Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

¹It happened at that time that Judah went down from his brothers and settled near a certain Adullamite whose name was Hirah.

²There Judah saw the daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua; he married her and went in to her.

³She conceived and bore a son; and he named him Er.

⁴Again she conceived and bore a son whom she named Onan.

⁵Yet again she bore a son, and she named him Shelah. She was in Chezib when she bore him.

⁶Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn; her name was Tamar.

⁷But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD, and the LORD put him to death.

⁸Then Judah said to Onan, “Go in to your brother’s wife and perform the duty of a brother-in-law to her; raise up offspring for your brother.”

⁹But since Onan knew that the offspring would not be his, he spilled his semen on the ground whenever he went in to his brother’s wife, so that he would not give offspring to his brother.

¹⁰What he did was displeasing in the sight of the LORD, and he put him to death also.

¹¹Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, “Remain a widow in your father’s house until my son Shelah grows up” — for he feared that he too would die, like his brothers. So Tamar went to live in her father’s house.

¹²In course of time the wife of Judah, Shua’s daughter, died; when Judah’s time of mourning was over, he went up to Timnah to his sheepshearers, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite.

¹³When Tamar was told, “Your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep,”

¹⁴she put off her widow’s garments, put on a veil, wrapped herself up, and sat down at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah. She saw that Shelah was grown up, yet she had not been given to him in marriage.

¹⁵When Judah saw her, he thought her to be a prostitute, for she had covered her face.

¹⁶He went over to her at the roadside, and said, “Come, let me come in to you,” for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. She said, “What will you give me, that you may come in to me?”

¹⁷He answered, “I will send you a kid from the flock.” And she said, “Only if you give me a pledge, until you send it.”

¹⁸He said, “What pledge shall I give you?” She replied, “Your signet and your cord, and the staff that is in your hand.” So he gave them to her, and went in to her, and she conceived by him.

¹⁹Then she got up and went away, and taking off her veil she put on the garments of her widowhood.

²⁰When Judah sent the kid by his friend the Adullamite, to recover the pledge from the woman, he could not find her.

²¹He asked the townspeople, “Where is the temple prostitute who was at Enaim by the wayside?” But they said, “No prostitute has been here.”

²²So he returned to Judah, and said, “I have not found her; moreover the townspeople said, ‘No prostitute has been here.’”

²³Judah replied, “Let her keep the things as her own, otherwise we will be laughed at; you see, I sent this kid, and you could not find her.”

²⁴About three months later Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar has played the whore; moreover she is pregnant as a result of whoredom.” And Judah said, “Bring her out, and let her be burned.”

²⁵As she was being brought out, she sent word to her father-in-law, “It was the owner of these who made me pregnant.” And she said, “Take note, please, whose these are, the signet and the cord and the staff.”

²⁶Then Judah acknowledged them and said, “She is more in the right than I, since I did not give her to my son Shelah.” And he did not lie with her again.

²⁷When the time of her delivery came, there were twins in her womb.

²⁸While she was in labor, one put out a hand; and the midwife took and bound on his hand a crimson thread, saying, “This one came out first.”

²⁹But just then he drew back his hand, and out came his brother; and she said, “What a breach you have made for yourself!” Therefore he was named Perez.

³⁰Afterward his brother came out with the crimson thread on his hand; and he was named Zerah.

¹As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain.

²For he says, “At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.” See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!

³We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry,

⁴but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities,

⁵beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger;

⁶by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love,

⁷truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left;

⁸in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true;

⁹as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see — we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed;

¹⁰as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

¹¹We have spoken frankly to you Corinthians; our heart is wide open to you.

¹²There is no restriction in our affections, but only in yours.

¹³In return — I speak as to children — open wide your hearts also.

¹⁴Do not be mismatched with unbelievers. For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship is there between light and darkness?

¹⁵What agreement does Christ have with Beliar? Or what does a believer share with an unbeliever?

¹⁶What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will live in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

¹⁷Therefore come out from them, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch nothing unclean; then I will welcome you,

¹⁸and I will be your father, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”

¹See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

²Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.

³And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

⁴Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.

⁵You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.

⁶No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him.

⁷Little children, let no one deceive you. Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.

⁸Everyone who commits sin is a child of the devil; for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.

⁹Those who have been born of God do not sin, because God’s seed abides in them; they cannot sin, because they have been born of God.

¹⁰The children of God and the children of the devil are revealed in this way: all who do not do what is right are not from God, nor are those who do not love their brothers and sisters.

¹¹For this is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

¹²We must not be like Cain who was from the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous.

¹³Do not be astonished, brothers and sisters, that the world hates you.

¹⁴We know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another. Whoever does not love abides in death.

¹⁵All who hate a brother or sister are murderers, and you know that murderers do not have eternal life abiding in them.

¹⁶We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us — and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.

¹⁷How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?

¹⁸Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.

¹⁹And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him

²⁰whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

²¹Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God;

²²and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.

²³And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.

²⁴All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.

¹Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind:

²“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?

³Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.

⁴“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.

⁵Who determined its measurements — surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?

⁶On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone

⁷when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?

⁸“Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb? —

⁹when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band,

¹⁰and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors,

¹¹and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped’?

¹²“Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place,

¹³so that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it?

¹⁴It is changed like clay under the seal, and it is dyed like a garment.

¹⁵Light is withheld from the wicked, and their uplifted arm is broken.

¹⁶“Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep?

¹⁷Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?

¹⁸Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Declare, if you know all this.

¹⁹“Where is the way to the dwelling of light, and where is the place of darkness,

²⁰that you may take it to its territory and that you may discern the paths to its home?

²¹Surely you know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great!

²²“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail,

²³which I have reserved for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war?

²⁴What is the way to the place where the light is distributed, or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth?

²⁵“Who has cut a channel for the torrents of rain, and a way for the thunderbolt,

²⁶to bring rain on a land where no one lives, on the desert, which is empty of human life,

²⁷to satisfy the waste and desolate land, and to make the ground put forth grass?

²⁸“Has the rain a father, or who has begotten the drops of dew?

²⁹From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the hoarfrost of heaven?

³⁰The waters become hard like stone, and the face of the deep is frozen.

³¹“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, or loose the cords of Orion?

³²Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season, or can you guide the Bear with its children?

³³Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on the earth?

³⁴“Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, so that a flood of waters may cover you?

³⁵Can you send forth lightnings, so that they may go and say to you, ‘Here we are’?

³⁶Who has put wisdom in the inward parts, or given understanding to the mind?

³⁷Who has the wisdom to number the clouds? Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens,

³⁸when the dust runs into a mass and the clods cling together?

³⁹“Can you hunt the prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,

⁴⁰when they crouch in their dens, or lie in wait in their covert?

⁴¹Who provides for the raven its prey, when its young ones cry to God, and wander about for lack of food?

¹O LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger, or discipline me in your wrath.

²For your arrows have sunk into me, and your hand has come down on me.

³There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation; there is no health in my bones because of my sin.

⁴For my iniquities have gone over my head; they weigh like a burden too heavy for me.

⁵My wounds grow foul and fester because of my foolishness;

⁶I am utterly bowed down and prostrate; all day long I go around mourning.

⁷For my loins are filled with burning, and there is no soundness in my flesh.

⁸I am utterly spent and crushed; I groan because of the tumult of my heart.

⁹O Lord, all my longing is known to you; my sighing is not hidden from you.

¹⁰My heart throbs, my strength fails me; as for the light of my eyes — it also has gone from me.

¹¹My friends and companions stand aloof from my affliction, and my neighbors stand far off.

¹²Those who seek my life lay their snares; those who seek to hurt me speak of ruin, and meditate treachery all day long.

¹³But I am like the deaf, I do not hear; like the mute, who cannot speak.

¹⁴Truly, I am like one who does not hear, and in whose mouth is no retort.

¹⁵But it is for you, O LORD, that I wait; it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer.

¹⁶For I pray, “Only do not let them rejoice over me, those who boast against me when my foot slips.”

¹⁷For I am ready to fall, and my pain is ever with me.

¹⁸I confess my iniquity; I am sorry for my sin.

¹⁹Those who are my foes without cause are mighty, and many are those who hate me wrongfully.

²⁰Those who render me evil for good are my adversaries because I follow after good.

²¹Do not forsake me, O LORD; O my God, do not be far from me;

²²make haste to help me, O Lord, my salvation.

¹My child, keep my words and store up my commandments with you;

²keep my commandments and live, keep my teachings as the apple of your eye;

³bind them on your fingers, write them on the tablet of your heart.

⁴Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,” and call insight your intimate friend,

⁵that they may keep you from the loose woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words.

⁶For at the window of my house I looked out through my lattice,

⁷and I saw among the simple ones, I observed among the youths, a young man without sense,

⁸passing along the street near her corner, taking the road to her house

⁹in the twilight, in the evening, at the time of night and darkness.

¹⁰Then a woman comes toward him, decked out like a prostitute, wily of heart.

¹¹She is loud and wayward; her feet do not stay at home;

¹²now in the street, now in the squares, and at every corner she lies in wait.

¹³She seizes him and kisses him, and with impudent face she says to him:

¹⁴“I had to offer sacrifices, and today I have paid my vows;

¹⁵so now I have come out to meet you, to seek you eagerly, and I have found you!

¹⁶I have decked my couch with coverings, colored spreads of Egyptian linen;

¹⁷I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.

¹⁸Come, let us take our fill of love until morning; let us delight ourselves with love.

¹⁹For my husband is not at home; he has gone on a long journey.

²⁰He took a bag of money with him; he will not come home until full moon.”

²¹With much seductive speech she persuades him; with her smooth talk she compels him.

²²Right away he follows her, and goes like an ox to the slaughter, or bounds like a stag toward the trap

²³until an arrow pierces its entrails. He is like a bird rushing into a snare, not knowing that it will cost him his life.

²⁴And now, my children, listen to me, and be attentive to the words of my mouth.

²⁵Do not let your hearts turn aside to her ways; do not stray into her paths.

²⁶For many are those she has laid low, and numerous are her victims.

²⁷Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death.

¹Once Samson went down to Timnah, and at Timnah he saw a Philistine woman.

²Then he came up, and told his father and mother, “I saw a Philistine woman at Timnah; now get her for me as my wife.”

³But his father and mother said to him, “Is there not a woman among your kin, or among all our people, that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?” But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, because she pleases me.”

⁴His father and mother did not know that this was from the LORD; for he was seeking a pretext to act against the Philistines. At that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel.

⁵Then Samson went down with his father and mother to Timnah. When he came to the vineyards of Timnah, suddenly a young lion roared at him.

⁶The spirit of the LORD rushed on him, and he tore the lion apart barehanded as one might tear apart a kid. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done.

⁷Then he went down and talked with the woman, and she pleased Samson.

⁸After a while he returned to marry her, and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion, and there was a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey.

⁹He scraped it out into his hands, and went on, eating as he went. When he came to his father and mother, he gave some to them, and they ate it. But he did not tell them that he had taken the honey from the carcass of the lion.

¹⁰His father went down to the woman, and Samson made a feast there as the young men were accustomed to do.

¹¹When the people saw him, they brought thirty companions to be with him.

¹²Samson said to them, “Let me now put a riddle to you. If you can explain it to me within the seven days of the feast, and find it out, then I will give you thirty linen garments and thirty festal garments.

¹³But if you cannot explain it to me, then you shall give me thirty linen garments and thirty festal garments.” So they said to him, “Ask your riddle; let us hear it.”

¹⁴He said to them, “Out of the eater came something to eat. Out of the strong came something sweet.” But for three days they could not explain the riddle.

¹⁵On the fourth day they said to Samson’s wife, “Coax your husband to explain the riddle to us, or we will burn you and your father’s house with fire. Have you invited us here to impoverish us?”

¹⁶So Samson’s wife wept before him, saying, “You hate me; you do not really love me. You have asked a riddle of my people, but you have not explained it to me.” He said to her, “Look, I have not told my father or my mother. Why should I tell you?”

¹⁷She wept before him the seven days that their feast lasted; and because she nagged him, on the seventh day he told her. Then she explained the riddle to her people.

¹⁸The men of the town said to him on the seventh day before the sun went down, “What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?” And he said to them, “If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle.”

¹⁹Then the spirit of the LORD rushed on him, and he went down to Ashkelon. He killed thirty men of the town, took their spoil, and gave the festal garments to those who had explained the riddle. In hot anger he went back to his father’s house.

²⁰And Samson’s wife was given to his companion, who had been his best man.

¹In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, “Thus says the LORD: Set your house in order, for you shall die; you shall not recover.”

²Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall, and prayed to the LORD:

³“Remember now, O LORD, I implore you, how I have walked before you in faithfulness with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

⁴Then the word of the LORD came to Isaiah:

⁵“Go and say to Hezekiah, Thus says the LORD, the God of your ancestor David: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life.

⁶I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and defend this city.

⁷“This is the sign to you from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing that he has promised:

⁸See, I will make the shadow cast by the declining sun on the dial of Ahaz turn back ten steps.” So the sun turned back on the dial the ten steps by which it had declined.

⁹A writing of King Hezekiah of Judah, after he had been sick and had recovered from his sickness:

¹⁰I said: In the noontide of my days I must depart; I am consigned to the gates of Sheol for the rest of my years.

¹¹I said, I shall not see the LORD in the land of the living; I shall look upon mortals no more among the inhabitants of the world.

¹²My dwelling is plucked up and removed from me like a shepherd’s tent; like a weaver I have rolled up my life; he cuts me off from the loom; from day to night you bring me to an end;

¹³I cry for help until morning; like a lion he breaks all my bones; from day to night you bring me to an end.

¹⁴Like a swallow or a crane I clamor, I moan like a dove. My eyes are weary with looking upward. O Lord, I am oppressed; be my security!

¹⁵But what can I say? For he has spoken to me, and he himself has done it. All my sleep has fled because of the bitterness of my soul.

¹⁶O Lord, by these things people live, and in all these is the life of my spirit. Oh, restore me to health and make me live!

¹⁷Surely it was for my welfare that I had great bitterness; but you have held back my life from the pit of destruction, for you have cast all my sins behind your back.

¹⁸For Sheol cannot thank you, death cannot praise you; those who go down to the Pit cannot hope for your faithfulness.

¹⁹The living, the living, they thank you, as I do this day; fathers make known to children your faithfulness.

²⁰The LORD will save me, and we will sing to stringed instruments all the days of our lives, at the house of the LORD.

²¹Now Isaiah had said, “Let them take a lump of figs, and apply it to the boil, so that he may recover.”

²²Hezekiah also had said, “What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the LORD?”

¹In Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian Cohort, as it was called.

²He was a devout man who feared God with all his household; he gave alms generously to the people and prayed constantly to God.

³One afternoon at about three o’clock he had a vision in which he clearly saw an angel of God coming in and saying to him, “Cornelius.”

⁴He stared at him in terror and said, “What is it, Lord?” He answered, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God.

⁵Now send men to Joppa for a certain Simon who is called Peter;

⁶he is lodging with Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the seaside.”

⁷When the angel who spoke to him had left, he called two of his slaves and a devout soldier from the ranks of those who served him,

⁸and after telling them everything, he sent them to Joppa.

⁹About noon the next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray.

¹⁰He became hungry and wanted something to eat; and while it was being prepared, he fell into a trance.

¹¹He saw the heaven opened and something like a large sheet coming down, being lowered to the ground by its four corners.

¹²In it were all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air.

¹³Then he heard a voice saying, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.”

¹⁴But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean.”

¹⁵The voice said to him again, a second time, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”

¹⁶This happened three times, and the thing was suddenly taken up to heaven.

¹⁷Now while Peter was greatly puzzled about what to make of the vision that he had seen, suddenly the men sent by Cornelius appeared. They were asking for Simon’s house and were standing by the gate.

¹⁸They called out to ask whether Simon, who was called Peter, was staying there.

¹⁹While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Look, three men are searching for you.

²⁰Now get up, go down, and go with them without hesitation; for I have sent them.”

²¹So Peter went down to the men and said, “I am the one you are looking for; what is the reason for your coming?”

²²They answered, “Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to hear what you have to say.”

²³So Peter invited them in and gave them lodging. The next day he got up and went with them, and some of the believers from Joppa accompanied him.

²⁴The following day they came to Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends.

²⁵On Peter’s arrival Cornelius met him, and falling at his feet, worshiped him.

²⁶But Peter made him get up, saying, “Stand up; I am only a mortal.”

²⁷And as he talked with him, he went in and found that many had assembled;

²⁸and he said to them, “You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean.

²⁹So when I was sent for, I came without objection. Now may I ask why you sent for me?”

³⁰Cornelius replied, “Four days ago at this very hour, at three o’clock, I was praying in my house when suddenly a man in dazzling clothes stood before me.

³¹He said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God.

³²Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon, who is called Peter; he is staying in the home of Simon, a tanner, by the sea.’

³³Therefore I sent for you immediately, and you have been kind enough to come. So now all of us are here in the presence of God to listen to all that the Lord has commanded you to say.”

³⁴Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality,

³⁵but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.

³⁶You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ — he is Lord of all.

³⁷That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced:

³⁸how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.

³⁹We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree;

⁴⁰but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear,

⁴¹not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.

⁴²He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead.

⁴³All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

⁴⁴While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word.

⁴⁵The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles,

⁴⁶for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said,

⁴⁷“Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”

⁴⁸So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days.