15 And certain persons, having come down from Judaea, taught the brethren, If ye shall not have been circumcised according to the custom of Moses, ye cannot be saved.

² A commotion therefore having taken place, and no small discussion on the part of Paul and Barnabas against them, they arranged that Paul and Barnabas, and certain others from amongst them, should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this question.

³ They therefore, having been set on their way by the assembly, passed through Phoenicia and Samaria, relating the conversion of [those of] the nations. And they caused great joy to all the brethren.

⁴ And being arrived at Jerusalem, they were received by the assembly, and the apostles, and the elders, and related all that God had wrought with them.

⁵ And some of those who were of the sect of the Pharisees, who believed, rose up from among [them], saying that they ought to circumcise them and enjoin them to keep the law of Moses.

⁶ And the apostles and the elders were gathered together to see about this matter.

⁷ And much discussion having taken place, Peter, standing up, said to them, Brethren, *ye* know that from the earliest days God amongst you chose that the nations by my mouth should hear the word of the glad tidings and believe.

⁸ And the heart-knowing God bore them witness, giving [them] the Holy Spirit as to us also,

⁹ and put no difference between us and them, having purified their hearts by faith.

¹⁰ Now therefore why tempt ye God, by putting a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?

¹¹ But we believe that we shall be saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same manner as they also.

¹² And all the multitude kept silence and listened to Barnabas and Paul relating all the signs and wonders which God had wrought among the nations by them.

¹³ And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Brethren, listen to me:

¹⁴ Simon has related how God first visited to take out of [the] nations a people for his name.

¹⁵ And with this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written:

¹⁶ After these things I will return, and will rebuild the tabernacle of David which is fallen, and will rebuild its ruins, and will set it up,

¹⁷ so that the residue of men may seek out the Lord, and all the nations on whom my name is invoked, saith [the] Lord, who does these things

¹⁸ known from eternity.

¹⁹ Wherefore *I* judge, not to trouble those who from the nations turn to God;

²⁰ but to write to them to abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from what is strangled, and from blood.

²¹ For Moses, from generations of old, has in every city those who preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath.

²² Then it seemed good to the apostles and to the elders, with the whole assembly, to send chosen men from among them with Paul and Barnabas to Antioch, Judas called Barsabas and Silas, leading men among the brethren,

²³ having by their hand written [thus]: The apostles, and the elders, and the brethren, to the brethren who are from among [the] nations at Antioch, and [in] Syria and Cilicia, greeting:

²⁴ Inasmuch as we have heard that some who went out from amongst us have troubled you by words, upsetting your souls, [saying that ye must be circumcised and keep the law]; to whom we gave no commandment;

²⁵ it seemed good to us, having arrived at a common judgment, to send chosen men to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul,

²⁶ men who have given up their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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

²⁸ For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things:

²⁹ to abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what is strangled, and from fornication; keeping yourselves from which ye will do well. Farewell.

³⁰ They therefore, being let go, came to Antioch, and having gathered the multitude delivered to [them] the epistle.

³¹ And having read it, they rejoiced at the consolation.

³² And Judas and Silas, being themselves also prophets, exhorted the brethren with much discourse, and strengthened them.

³³ And having passed some time [there], they were let go in peace from the brethren to those who sent them.

³⁵ And Paul and Barnabas stayed in Antioch, teaching and announcing the glad tidings, with many others also, of the word of the Lord.

³⁶ But after certain days Paul said to Barnabas, Let us return now and visit the brethren in every city where we have announced the word of the Lord, [and see] how they are getting on.

³⁷ And Barnabas proposed to take with [them] John also, called Mark;

³⁸ but Paul thought it not well to take with them him who had abandoned them, [going back] from Pamphylia, and had not gone with them to the work.

³⁹ There arose therefore very warm feeling, so that they separated from one another; and Barnabas taking Mark sailed away to Cyprus;

⁴⁰ but Paul having chosen Silas went forth, committed by the brethren to the grace of God.

⁴¹ And he passed through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the assemblies.

16 And he came to Derbe and Lystra: and behold, a certain disciple was there, by name Timotheus, son of a Jewish believing woman, but [the] father a Greek,

² who had a [good] testimony of the brethren in Lystra and Iconium.

³ Him would Paul have go forth with him, and took [him and] circumcised him on account of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew his father that he was a Greek.

⁴ And as they passed through the cities they instructed them to observe the decrees determined on by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem.

⁵ The assemblies therefore were confirmed in the faith, and increased in number every day.

⁶ And having passed through Phrygia and the Galatian country, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia,

⁷ having come down to Mysia, they attempted to go to Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them;

⁸ and having passed by Mysia they descended to Troas.

⁹ And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: There was a certain Macedonian man, standing and beseeching him, and saying, Pass over into Macedonia and help us.

¹⁰ And when he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go forth to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to announce to them the glad tidings.

¹¹ Having sailed therefore away from Troas, we went in a straight course to Samothracia, and on the morrow to Neapolis,

¹² and thence to Philippi, which is [the] first city of that part of Macedonia, a colony. And we were staying in that city certain days.

¹³ And on the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where it was the custom for prayer to be, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had assembled.

¹⁴ And a certain woman, by name Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, who worshipped God, heard; whose heart the Lord opened to attend to the things spoken by Paul.

¹⁵ And when she had been baptised and her house, she besought [us], saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and abide [there]. And she constrained us.

¹⁶ And it came to pass as we were going to prayer that a certain female slave, having a spirit of Python, met us, who brought much profit to her masters by prophesying.

¹⁷ She, having followed Paul and us, cried saying, These men are bondmen of the Most High God, who announce to you [the] way of salvation.

¹⁸ And this she did many days. And Paul, being distressed, turned, and said to the spirit, I enjoin thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And it came out the same hour.

¹⁹ And her masters, seeing that the hope of their gains was gone, having seized Paul and Silas, dragged [them] into the market before the magistrates;

²⁰ and having brought them up to the praetors, said, These men utterly trouble our city, being Jews,

²¹ and announce customs which it is not lawful for us to receive nor practise, being Romans.

²² And the crowd rose up too against them; and the praetors, having torn off their clothes, commanded to scourge [them].

²³ And having laid many stripes upon them they cast [them] into prison, charging the jailor to keep them safely;

²⁴ who, having received such a charge, cast them into the inner prison, and secured their feet to the stocks.

²⁵ And at midnight Paul and Silas, in praying, were praising God with singing, and the prisoners listened to them.

²⁶ And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison shook, and all the doors were immediately opened, and the bonds of all loosed.

²⁷ And the jailor being awakened out of his sleep, and seeing the doors of the prison opened, having drawn a sword was going to kill himself, thinking the prisoners had fled.

²⁸ But Paul called out with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm, for we are all here.

²⁹ And having asked for lights, he rushed in, and, trembling, fell down before Paul and Silas.

³⁰ And leading them out said, Sirs, what must I do that I may be saved?

³¹ And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house.

³² And they spoke to him the word of the Lord, with all that were in his house.

³³ And he took them the same hour of the night and washed [them] from their stripes; and was baptised, he and all his straightway.

³⁴ And having brought them into his house he laid the table [for them], and rejoiced with all his house, having believed in God.

³⁵ And when it was day, the praetors sent the lictors, saying, Let those men go.

³⁶ And the jailor reported these words to Paul: The praetors have sent that ye may be let go. Now therefore go out and depart in peace.

³⁷ But Paul said to them, Having beaten us publicly uncondemned, us who are Romans, they have cast us into prison, and now they thrust us out secretly? no, indeed, but let them come themselves and bring us out.

³⁸ And the lictors reported these words to the praetors. And they were afraid when they heard they were Romans.

³⁹ And they came and besought them, and having brought them out, asked them to go out of the city.

⁴⁰ And having gone out of the prison, they came to Lydia; and having seen the brethren, they exhorted them and went away.

17 And having journeyed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was the synagogue of the Jews.

² And according to Paul's custom he went in among them, and on three sabbaths reasoned with them from the scriptures,

³ opening and laying down that the Christ must have suffered and risen up from among the dead, and that this is the Christ, Jesus whom *I* announce to you.

⁴ And some of them believed, and joined themselves to Paul and Silas, and of the Greeks who worshipped, a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few.

⁵ But the Jews having been stirred up to jealousy, and taken to [themselves] certain wicked men of the lowest rabble, and having got a crowd together, set the city in confusion; and having beset the house of Jason sought to bring them out to the people;

⁶ and not having found them, dragged Jason and certain brethren before the politarchs, crying out, These [men] that have set the world in tumult, are come here also,

⁷ whom Jason has received; and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying, that there is another king, Jesus.

⁸ And they troubled the crowd and the politarchs when they heard these things.

⁹ And having taken security of Jason and the rest, they let them go.

¹⁰ But the brethren immediately sent away, in the night, Paul and Silas to Berea; who, being arrived, went away into the synagogue of the Jews.

¹¹ And these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, receiving the word with all readiness of mind, daily searching the scriptures if these things were so.

¹² Therefore many from among them believed, and of Grecian women of the upper classes and men not a few.

¹³ But when the Jews from Thessalonica knew that the word of God was announced in Berea also by Paul, they came there also, stirring up the crowds.

¹⁴ And then immediately the brethren sent away Paul to go as to the sea; but Silas and Timotheus abode there.

¹⁵ But they that conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens; and, having received a commandment to Silas and Timotheus, that they should come to him as quickly as possible, they departed.

¹⁶ But in Athens, while Paul was waiting for them, his spirit was painfully excited in him seeing the city given up to idolatry.

¹⁷ He reasoned therefore in the synagogue with the Jews, and those who worshipped, and in the market-place every day with those he met with.

¹⁸ But some also of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers attacked him. And some said, What would this chatterer say? and some, He seems to be an announcer of foreign demons, because he announced the glad tidings of Jesus and the resurrection [to them].

¹⁹ And having taken hold on him they brought [him] to Areopagus, saying, Might we know what this new doctrine which is spoken by thee [is]?

²⁰ For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears. We wish therefore to know what these things may mean.

²¹ Now all [the] Athenians and the strangers sojourning there spent their time in nothing else than to tell and to hear the news.

²² And Paul standing in the midst of Areopagus said, Athenians, in every way I see you given up to demon worship;

²³ for, passing through and beholding your shrines, I found also an altar on which was inscribed, To the unknown God. Whom therefore ye reverence, not knowing [him], him I announce to you.

²⁴ The God who has made the world and all things which are in it, *he*, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands,

²⁵ nor is served by men's hands as needing something, himself giving to all life and breath and all things;

²⁶ and has made of one blood every nation of men to dwell upon the whole face of the earth, having determined ordained times and the boundaries of their dwelling,

²⁷ that they may seek God; if indeed they might feel after him and find him, although he is not far from each one of us:

²⁸ for in him we live and move and exist; as also some of the poets amongst you have said, For we are also his offspring.

²⁹ Being therefore [the] offspring of God, we ought not to think that which is divine to be like gold or silver or stone, [the] graven form of man's art and imagination.

³⁰ God therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, now enjoins men that they shall all everywhere repent,

³¹ because he has set a day in which he is going to judge the habitable earth in righteousness by [the] man whom he has appointed, giving the proof [of it] to all [in] having raised him from among [the] dead.

³² And when they heard [of the] resurrection of the dead, some mocked, and some said, We will hear thee again also concerning this.

³³ Thus Paul went out of their midst.

³⁴ But some men joining themselves to him believed; among whom also was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman by name Damaris, and others with them.

18 And after these things, having left Athens, he came to Corinth;

² and finding a certain Jew by name Aquila, of Pontus by race, just come from Italy, and Priscilla his wife, (because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome,) came to them,

³ and because they were of the same trade abode with them, and wrought. For they were tent-makers by trade.

⁴ And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded Jews and Greeks.

⁵ And when both Silas and Timotheus came down from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in respect of the word, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ.

⁶ But as they opposed and spoke injuriously, he shook his clothes, and said to them, Your blood be upon your own head: *I* [am] pure; from henceforth I will go to the nations.

⁷ And departing thence he came to the house of a certain [man], by name Justus, who worshipped God, whose house adjoined the synagogue.

⁸ But Crispus the ruler of the synagogue believed in the Lord with all his house; and many of the Corinthians hearing, believed, and were baptised.

⁹ And the Lord said by vision in [the] night to Paul, Fear not, but speak and be not silent;

¹⁰ because *I* am with thee, and no one shall set upon thee to injure thee; because I have much people in this city.

¹¹ And he remained [there] a year and six months, teaching among them the word of God.

¹² But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews with one consent rose against Paul and led him to the judgment-seat,

¹³ saying, This [man] persuades men to worship God contrary to the law.

¹⁴ But as Paul was going to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, If indeed it was some wrong or wicked criminality, O Jews, of reason I should have borne with you;

¹⁵ but if it be questions about words, and names, and the law that ye have, see to it yourselves; [for] *I* do not intend to be judge of these things.

¹⁶ And he drove them from the judgment-seat.

¹⁷ And having all laid hold on Sosthenes the ruler of the synagogue, they beat him before the judgment-seat. And Gallio troubled himself about none of these things.

¹⁸ And Paul, having yet stayed [there] many days, took leave of the brethren and sailed thence to Syria, and with him Priscilla and Aquila, having shorn his head in Cenchrea, for he had a vow;

¹⁹ and he arrived at Ephesus, and left them there. But entering himself into the synagogue he reasoned with the Jews.

²⁰ And when they asked him that he would remain for a longer time [with them] he did not accede,

²¹ but bade them farewell, saying, [I must by all means keep the coming feast at Jerusalem]; I will return to you again, if God will: and he sailed away from Ephesus.

²² And landing at Caesarea, and having gone up and saluted the assembly, he went down to Antioch.

²³ And having stayed [there] some time, he went forth, passing in order through the country of Galatia and Phrygia, establishing all the disciples.

²⁴ But a certain Jew, Apollos by name, an Alexandrian by race, an eloquent man, who was mighty in the scriptures, arrived at Ephesus.

²⁵ He was instructed in the way of the Lord, and being fervent in his spirit, he spoke and taught exactly the things concerning Jesus, knowing only the baptism of John.

²⁶ And *he* began to speak boldly in the synagogue. And Aquila and Priscilla, having heard him, took him to [them] and unfolded to him the way of God more exactly.

²⁷ And when he purposed to go into Achaia, the brethren wrote to the disciples engaging them to receive him, who, being come, contributed much to those who believed through grace.

²⁸ For he with great force convinced the Jews publicly, shewing by the scriptures that Jesus was the Christ.