Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him.

²And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

³So he told them this parable:

⁴“Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?

⁵When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices.

⁶And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’

⁷Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

⁸“Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?

⁹When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’

¹⁰Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

¹¹Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons.

¹²The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them.

¹³A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living.

¹⁴When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need.

¹⁵So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs.

¹⁶He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything.

¹⁷But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!

¹⁸I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you;

¹⁹I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”’

²⁰So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.

²¹Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

²²But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe — the best one — and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.

²³And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate;

²⁴for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.

²⁵“Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing.

²⁶He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on.

²⁷He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’

²⁸Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him.

²⁹But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends.

³⁰But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’

³¹Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.

³²But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’”

¹Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, and say to him, ‘Thus says the LORD, the God of the Hebrews: Let my people go, so that they may worship me.

²For if you refuse to let them go and still hold them,

³the hand of the LORD will strike with a deadly pestilence your livestock in the field: the horses, the donkeys, the camels, the herds, and the flocks.

⁴But the LORD will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, so that nothing shall die of all that belongs to the Israelites.’”

⁵The LORD set a time, saying, “Tomorrow the LORD will do this thing in the land.”

⁶And on the next day the LORD did so; all the livestock of the Egyptians died, but of the livestock of the Israelites not one died.

⁷Pharaoh inquired and found that not one of the livestock of the Israelites was dead. But the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he would not let the people go.

⁸Then the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Take handfuls of soot from the kiln, and let Moses throw it in the air in the sight of Pharaoh.

⁹It shall become fine dust all over the land of Egypt, and shall cause festering boils on humans and animals throughout the whole land of Egypt.”

¹⁰So they took soot from the kiln, and stood before Pharaoh, and Moses threw it in the air, and it caused festering boils on humans and animals.

¹¹The magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils, for the boils afflicted the magicians as well as all the Egyptians.

¹²But the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he would not listen to them, just as the LORD had spoken to Moses.

¹³Then the LORD said to Moses, “Rise up early in the morning and present yourself before Pharaoh, and say to him, ‘Thus says the LORD, the God of the Hebrews: Let my people go, so that they may worship me.

¹⁴For this time I will send all my plagues upon you yourself, and upon your officials, and upon your people, so that you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth.

¹⁵For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth.

¹⁶But this is why I have let you live: to show you my power, and to make my name resound through all the earth.

¹⁷You are still exalting yourself against my people, and will not let them go.

¹⁸Tomorrow at this time I will cause the heaviest hail to fall that has ever fallen in Egypt from the day it was founded until now.

¹⁹Send, therefore, and have your livestock and everything that you have in the open field brought to a secure place; every human or animal that is in the open field and is not brought under shelter will die when the hail comes down upon them.’”

²⁰Those officials of Pharaoh who feared the word of the LORD hurried their slaves and livestock off to a secure place.

²¹Those who did not regard the word of the LORD left their slaves and livestock in the open field.

²²The LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven so that hail may fall on the whole land of Egypt, on humans and animals and all the plants of the field in the land of Egypt.”

²³Then Moses stretched out his staff toward heaven, and the LORD sent thunder and hail, and fire came down on the earth. And the LORD rained hail on the land of Egypt;

²⁴there was hail with fire flashing continually in the midst of it, such heavy hail as had never fallen in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation.

²⁵The hail struck down everything that was in the open field throughout all the land of Egypt, both human and animal; the hail also struck down all the plants of the field, and shattered every tree in the field.

²⁶Only in the land of Goshen, where the Israelites were, there was no hail.

²⁷Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron, and said to them, “This time I have sinned; the LORD is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong.

²⁸Pray to the LORD! Enough of God’s thunder and hail! I will let you go; you need stay no longer.”

²⁹Moses said to him, “As soon as I have gone out of the city, I will stretch out my hands to the LORD; the thunder will cease, and there will be no more hail, so that you may know that the earth is the LORD’s.

³⁰But as for you and your officials, I know that you do not yet fear the LORD God.”

³¹(Now the flax and the barley were ruined, for the barley was in the ear and the flax was in bud.

³²But the wheat and the spelt were not ruined, for they are late in coming up.)

³³So Moses left Pharaoh, went out of the city, and stretched out his hands to the LORD; then the thunder and the hail ceased, and the rain no longer poured down on the earth.

³⁴But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned once more and hardened his heart, he and his officials.

³⁵So the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, and he would not let the Israelites go, just as the LORD had spoken through Moses.

¹If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy,

²make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

³Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.

⁴Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.

⁵Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

⁶who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,

⁷but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form,

⁸he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross.

⁹Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name,

¹⁰so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

¹¹and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

¹²Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;

¹³for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

¹⁴Do all things without murmuring and arguing,

¹⁵so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine like stars in the world.

¹⁶It is by your holding fast to the word of life that I can boast on the day of Christ that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.

¹⁷But even if I am being poured out as a libation over the sacrifice and the offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you —

¹⁸and in the same way you also must be glad and rejoice with me.

¹⁹I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I may be cheered by news of you.

²⁰I have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare.

²¹All of them are seeking their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.

²²But Timothy’s worth you know, how like a son with a father he has served with me in the work of the gospel.

²³I hope therefore to send him as soon as I see how things go with me;

²⁴and I trust in the Lord that I will also come soon.

²⁵Still, I think it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus — my brother and co-worker and fellow soldier, your messenger and minister to my need;

²⁶for he has been longing for all of you, and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill.

²⁷He was indeed so ill that he nearly died. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, so that I would not have one sorrow after another.

²⁸I am the more eager to send him, therefore, in order that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious.

²⁹Welcome him then in the Lord with all joy, and honor such people,

³⁰because he came close to death for the work of Christ, risking his life to make up for those services that you could not give me.

¹Then I heard a loud voice from the temple telling the seven angels, “Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God.”

²So the first angel went and poured his bowl on the earth, and a foul and painful sore came on those who had the mark of the beast and who worshiped its image.

³The second angel poured his bowl into the sea, and it became like the blood of a corpse, and every living thing in the sea died.

⁴The third angel poured his bowl into the rivers and the springs of water, and they became blood.

⁵And I heard the angel of the waters say, “You are just, O Holy One, who are and were, for you have judged these things;

⁶because they shed the blood of saints and prophets, you have given them blood to drink. It is what they deserve!”

⁷And I heard the altar respond, “Yes, O Lord God, the Almighty, your judgments are true and just!”

⁸The fourth angel poured his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to scorch people with fire;

⁹they were scorched by the fierce heat, but they cursed the name of God, who had authority over these plagues, and they did not repent and give him glory.

¹⁰The fifth angel poured his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness; people gnawed their tongues in agony,

¹¹and cursed the God of heaven because of their pains and sores, and they did not repent of their deeds.

¹²The sixth angel poured his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up in order to prepare the way for the kings from the east.

¹³And I saw three foul spirits like frogs coming from the mouth of the dragon, from the mouth of the beast, and from the mouth of the false prophet.

¹⁴These are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty.

¹⁵(“See, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake and is clothed, not going about naked and exposed to shame.”)

¹⁶And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Harmagedon.

¹⁷The seventh angel poured his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple, from the throne, saying, “It is done!”

¹⁸And there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, and a violent earthquake, such as had not occurred since people were upon the earth, so violent was that earthquake.

¹⁹The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. God remembered great Babylon and gave her the wine-cup of the fury of his wrath.

²⁰And every island fled away, and no mountains were to be found;

²¹and huge hailstones, each weighing about a hundred pounds, dropped from heaven on people, until they cursed God for the plague of the hail, so fearful was that plague.

¹I come to my garden, my sister, my bride; I gather my myrrh with my spice, I eat my honeycomb with my honey, I drink my wine with my milk. Eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love.

²I slept, but my heart was awake. Listen! my beloved is knocking. “Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one; for my head is wet with dew, my locks with the drops of the night.”

³I had put off my garment; how could I put it on again? I had bathed my feet; how could I soil them?

⁴My beloved thrust his hand into the opening, and my inmost being yearned for him.

⁵I arose to open to my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh, upon the handles of the bolt.

⁶I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had turned and was gone. My soul failed me when he spoke. I sought him, but did not find him; I called him, but he gave no answer.

⁷Making their rounds in the city the sentinels found me; they beat me, they wounded me, they took away my mantle, those sentinels of the walls.

⁸I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, tell him this: I am faint with love.

⁹What is your beloved more than another beloved, O fairest among women? What is your beloved more than another beloved, that you thus adjure us?

¹⁰My beloved is all radiant and ruddy, distinguished among ten thousand.

¹¹His head is the finest gold; his locks are wavy, black as a raven.

¹²His eyes are like doves beside springs of water, bathed in milk, fitly set.

¹³His cheeks are like beds of spices, yielding fragrance. His lips are lilies, distilling liquid myrrh.

¹⁴His arms are rounded gold, set with jewels. His body is ivory work, encrusted with sapphires.

¹⁵His legs are alabaster columns, set upon bases of gold. His appearance is like Lebanon, choice as the cedars.

¹⁶His speech is most sweet, and he is altogether desirable. This is my beloved and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.

¹Deliver me from my enemies, O my God; protect me from those who rise up against me.

²Deliver me from those who work evil; from the bloodthirsty save me.

³Even now they lie in wait for my life; the mighty stir up strife against me. For no transgression or sin of mine, O LORD,

⁴for no fault of mine, they run and make ready. Rouse yourself, come to my help and see!

⁵You, LORD God of hosts, are God of Israel. Awake to punish all the nations; spare none of those who treacherously plot evil. Selah

⁶Each evening they come back, howling like dogs and prowling about the city.

⁷There they are, bellowing with their mouths, with sharp words on their lips — for “Who,” they think, “will hear us?”

⁸But you laugh at them, O LORD; you hold all the nations in derision.

⁹O my strength, I will watch for you; for you, O God, are my fortress.

¹⁰My God in his steadfast love will meet me; my God will let me look in triumph on my enemies.

¹¹Do not kill them, or my people may forget; make them totter by your power, and bring them down, O Lord, our shield.

¹²For the sin of their mouths, the words of their lips, let them be trapped in their pride. For the cursing and lies that they utter,

¹³consume them in wrath; consume them until they are no more. Then it will be known to the ends of the earth that God rules over Jacob. Selah

¹⁴Each evening they come back, howling like dogs and prowling about the city.

¹⁵They roam about for food, and growl if they do not get their fill.

¹⁶But I will sing of your might; I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning. For you have been a fortress for me and a refuge in the day of my distress.

¹⁷O my strength, I will sing praises to you, for you, O God, are my fortress, the God who shows me steadfast love.

¹The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.

²When a land rebels it has many rulers; but with an intelligent ruler there is lasting order.

³A ruler who oppresses the poor is a beating rain that leaves no food.

⁴Those who forsake the law praise the wicked, but those who keep the law struggle against them.

⁵The evil do not understand justice, but those who seek the LORD understand it completely.

⁶Better to be poor and walk in integrity than to be crooked in one’s ways even though rich.

⁷Those who keep the law are wise children, but companions of gluttons shame their parents.

⁸One who augments wealth by exorbitant interest gathers it for another who is kind to the poor.

⁹When one will not listen to the law, even one’s prayers are an abomination.

¹⁰Those who mislead the upright into evil ways will fall into pits of their own making, but the blameless will have a goodly inheritance.

¹¹The rich is wise in self-esteem, but an intelligent poor person sees through the pose.

¹²When the righteous triumph, there is great glory, but when the wicked prevail, people go into hiding.

¹³No one who conceals transgressions will prosper, but one who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.

¹⁴Happy is the one who is never without fear, but one who is hard-hearted will fall into calamity.

¹⁵Like a roaring lion or a charging bear is a wicked ruler over a poor people.

¹⁶A ruler who lacks understanding is a cruel oppressor; but one who hates unjust gain will enjoy a long life.

¹⁷If someone is burdened with the blood of another, let that killer be a fugitive until death; let no one offer assistance.

¹⁸One who walks in integrity will be safe, but whoever follows crooked ways will fall into the Pit.

¹⁹Anyone who tills the land will have plenty of bread, but one who follows worthless pursuits will have plenty of poverty.

²⁰The faithful will abound with blessings, but one who is in a hurry to be rich will not go unpunished.

²¹To show partiality is not good — yet for a piece of bread a person may do wrong.

²²The miser is in a hurry to get rich and does not know that loss is sure to come.

²³Whoever rebukes a person will afterward find more favor than one who flatters with the tongue.

²⁴Anyone who robs father or mother and says, “That is no crime,” is partner to a thug.

²⁵The greedy person stirs up strife, but whoever trusts in the LORD will be enriched.

²⁶Those who trust in their own wits are fools; but those who walk in wisdom come through safely.

²⁷Whoever gives to the poor will lack nothing, but one who turns a blind eye will get many a curse.

²⁸When the wicked prevail, people go into hiding; but when they perish, the righteous increase.

¹Samuel took a vial of oil and poured it on his head, and kissed him; he said, “The LORD has anointed you ruler over his people Israel. You shall reign over the people of the LORD and you will save them from the hand of their enemies all around. Now this shall be the sign to you that the LORD has anointed you ruler over his heritage:

²When you depart from me today you will meet two men by Rachel’s tomb in the territory of Benjamin at Zelzah; they will say to you, ‘The donkeys that you went to seek are found, and now your father has stopped worrying about them and is worrying about you, saying: What shall I do about my son?’

³Then you shall go on from there further and come to the oak of Tabor; three men going up to God at Bethel will meet you there, one carrying three kids, another carrying three loaves of bread, and another carrying a skin of wine.

⁴They will greet you and give you two loaves of bread, which you shall accept from them.

⁵After that you shall come to Gibeath-elohim, at the place where the Philistine garrison is; there, as you come to the town, you will meet a band of prophets coming down from the shrine with harp, tambourine, flute, and lyre playing in front of them; they will be in a prophetic frenzy.

⁶Then the spirit of the LORD will possess you, and you will be in a prophetic frenzy along with them and be turned into a different person.

⁷Now when these signs meet you, do whatever you see fit to do, for God is with you.

⁸And you shall go down to Gilgal ahead of me; then I will come down to you to present burnt offerings and offer sacrifices of well-being. Seven days you shall wait, until I come to you and show you what you shall do.”

⁹As he turned away to leave Samuel, God gave him another heart; and all these signs were fulfilled that day.

¹⁰When they were going from there to Gibeah, a band of prophets met him; and the spirit of God possessed him, and he fell into a prophetic frenzy along with them.

¹¹When all who knew him before saw how he prophesied with the prophets, the people said to one another, “What has come over the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?”

¹²A man of the place answered, “And who is their father?” Therefore it became a proverb, “Is Saul also among the prophets?”

¹³When his prophetic frenzy had ended, he went home.

¹⁴Saul’s uncle said to him and to the boy, “Where did you go?” And he replied, “To seek the donkeys; and when we saw they were not to be found, we went to Samuel.”

¹⁵Saul’s uncle said, “Tell me what Samuel said to you.”

¹⁶Saul said to his uncle, “He told us that the donkeys had been found.” But about the matter of the kingship, of which Samuel had spoken, he did not tell him anything.

¹⁷Samuel summoned the people to the LORD at Mizpah

¹⁸and said to them, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘I brought up Israel out of Egypt, and I rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all the kingdoms that were oppressing you.’

¹⁹But today you have rejected your God, who saves you from all your calamities and your distresses; and you have said, ‘No! but set a king over us.’ Now therefore present yourselves before the LORD by your tribes and by your clans.”

²⁰Then Samuel brought all the tribes of Israel near, and the tribe of Benjamin was taken by lot.

²¹He brought the tribe of Benjamin near by its families, and the family of the Matrites was taken by lot. Finally he brought the family of the Matrites near man by man, and Saul the son of Kish was taken by lot. But when they sought him, he could not be found.

²²So they inquired again of the LORD, “Did the man come here?” and the LORD said, “See, he has hidden himself among the baggage.”

²³Then they ran and brought him from there. When he took his stand among the people, he was head and shoulders taller than any of them.

²⁴Samuel said to all the people, “Do you see the one whom the LORD has chosen? There is no one like him among all the people.” And all the people shouted, “Long live the king!”

²⁵Samuel told the people the rights and duties of the kingship; and he wrote them in a book and laid it up before the LORD. Then Samuel sent all the people back to their homes.

²⁶Saul also went to his home at Gibeah, and with him went warriors whose hearts God had touched.

²⁷But some worthless fellows said, “How can this man save us?” They despised him and brought him no present. But he held his peace. Now Nahash, king of the Ammonites, had been grievously oppressing the Gadites and the Reubenites. He would gouge out the right eye of each of them and would not grant Israel a deliverer. No one was left of the Israelites across the Jordan whose right eye Nahash, king of the Ammonites, had not gouged out. But there were seven thousand men who had escaped from the Ammonites and had entered Jabesh-gilead.

¹See, the LORD’s hand is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear.

²Rather, your iniquities have been barriers between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.

³For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue mutters wickedness.

⁴No one brings suit justly, no one goes to law honestly; they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies, conceiving mischief and begetting iniquity.

⁵They hatch adders’ eggs, and weave the spider’s web; whoever eats their eggs dies, and the crushed egg hatches out a viper.

⁶Their webs cannot serve as clothing; they cannot cover themselves with what they make. Their works are works of iniquity, and deeds of violence are in their hands.

⁷Their feet run to evil, and they rush to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity, desolation and destruction are in their highways.

⁸The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their paths. Their roads they have made crooked; no one who walks in them knows peace.

⁹Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us; we wait for light, and lo! there is darkness; and for brightness, but we walk in gloom.

¹⁰We grope like the blind along a wall, groping like those who have no eyes; we stumble at noon as in the twilight, among the vigorous as though we were dead.

¹¹We all growl like bears; like doves we moan mournfully. We wait for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us.

¹²For our transgressions before you are many, and our sins testify against us. Our transgressions indeed are with us, and we know our iniquities:

¹³transgressing, and denying the LORD, and turning away from following our God, talking oppression and revolt, conceiving lying words and uttering them from the heart.

¹⁴Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands at a distance; for truth stumbles in the public square, and uprightness cannot enter.

¹⁵Truth is lacking, and whoever turns from evil is despoiled. The LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice.

¹⁶He saw that there was no one, and was appalled that there was no one to intervene; so his own arm brought him victory, and his righteousness upheld him.

¹⁷He put on righteousness like a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head; he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped himself in fury as in a mantle.

¹⁸According to their deeds, so will he repay; wrath to his adversaries, requital to his enemies; to the coastlands he will render requital.

¹⁹So those in the west shall fear the name of the LORD, and those in the east, his glory; for he will come like a pent-up stream that the wind of the LORD drives on.

²⁰And he will come to Zion as Redeemer, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression, says the LORD.

²¹And as for me, this is my covenant with them, says the LORD: my spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouths of your children, or out of the mouths of your children’s children, says the LORD, from now on and forever.

¹One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at three o’clock in the afternoon.

²And a man lame from birth was being carried in. People would lay him daily at the gate of the temple called the Beautiful Gate so that he could ask for alms from those entering the temple.

³When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked them for alms.

⁴Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.”

⁵And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them.

⁶But Peter said, “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.”

⁷And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong.

⁸Jumping up, he stood and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.

⁹All the people saw him walking and praising God,

¹⁰and they recognized him as the one who used to sit and ask for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

¹¹While he clung to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the portico called Solomon’s Portico, utterly astonished.

¹²When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, “You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk?

¹³The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him.

¹⁴But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you,

¹⁵and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses.

¹⁶And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.

¹⁷“And now, friends, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers.

¹⁸In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer.

¹⁹Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out,

²⁰so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah appointed for you, that is, Jesus,

²¹who must remain in heaven until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets.

²²Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you from your own people a prophet like me. You must listen to whatever he tells you.

²³And it will be that everyone who does not listen to that prophet will be utterly rooted out of the people.’

²⁴And all the prophets, as many as have spoken, from Samuel and those after him, also predicted these days.

²⁵You are the descendants of the prophets and of the covenant that God gave to your ancestors, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your descendants all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’

²⁶When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you, to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways.”