Study Desk

They said, "Cornelius the centurion, a righteous and God-fearing man, well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to summon you to his house and to hear a message from you."

He said to them, "You know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile, yet God has shown me that I should call no person defiled or ritually unclean.

and said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your acts of charity have been remembered before God.

Therefore I sent for you at once, and you were kind enough to come. So now we are all here in the presence of God to listen to everything the Lord has commanded you to say to us."

Then Peter started speaking: "I now truly understand that God does not show favoritism in dealing with people,

with respect to Jesus from Nazareth, that God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, because God was with him.

but God raised him up on the third day and caused him to be seen,

not by all the people, but by us, the witnesses God had already chosen, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.

He commanded us to preach to the people and to warn them that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead.

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

Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles too had accepted the word of God.

But the voice replied a second time from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, you must not consider ritually unclean!'

Therefore if God gave them the same gift as he also gave us after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to hinder God?"

When they heard this, they ceased their objections and praised God, saying, "So then, God has granted the repentance that leads to life even to the Gentiles."

When he came and saw the grace of God, he rejoiced and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with devoted hearts,

So Peter was kept in prison, but those in the church were earnestly praying to God for him.

But the crowd began to shout, "The voice of a god, and not of a man!"

Immediately an angel of the Lord struck Herod down because he did not give the glory to God, and he was eaten by worms and died.

But the word of God kept on increasing and multiplying.

When they arrived in Salamis, they began to proclaim the word of God in the Jewish synagogues. (Now they also had John as their assistant.)