Study Desk

Now there was a man in Caesarea named Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian cohort,

a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, and made many charitable contributions to the Jewish people and prayed to God continually.

About the ninth hour of the day he clearly saw in a vision an angel of God who had just come in and said to him, "Cornelius!"

And he looked at him intently and became terrified, and said, "What is it, lord?" And he said to him, "Your prayers and charitable gifts have ascended as a memorial offering before God.

"Now dispatch some men to Joppa and send for a man named Simon, who is also called Peter;

he is staying with a tanner named Simon, whose house is by the sea."

When the angel who spoke to him left, he summoned two of his servants and a devout soldier from his personal attendants,

But he became hungry and wanted to eat; but while they were making preparations, he fell into a trance;

and he saw the sky opened up, and an object like a great sheet coming down, lowered by four corners to the ground,

A voice came to him, "Get up, Peter, kill and eat!"

Again a voice came to him a second time, "What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy."

They said, "Cornelius, a centurion, a righteous and God-fearing man well spoken of by the entire nation of the Jews, was divinely directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and hear a message from you."

But Peter helped him up, saying, "Stand up; I, too, am just a man."

And he said to them, "You yourselves know that it is forbidden for a Jewish man to associate with or visit a foreigner; and yet God has shown me that I am not to call any person unholy or unclean.

Cornelius said, "Four days ago to this hour, I was praying in my house during the ninth hour; and behold, a man stood before me in shining clothing,

"We are witnesses of all the things that He did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They also put Him to death by hanging Him on a cross.

And he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to stay on for a few days.

"I was in the city of Joppa praying; and in a trance I saw a vision, an object coming down like a great sheet lowered by four corners from the sky; and it came to where I was,

"I also heard a voice saying to me, 'Get up, Peter; kill and eat.'

"But a voice from heaven answered a second time, 'What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.'