Acts 1:4-14

Contemporary English Version

^4 (A) While he was still with them, he said:

Don't leave Jerusalem yet. Wait here for the Father to give you the Holy Spirit, just as I told you he has promised to do. ^5 (B) John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

Jesus Is Taken to Heaven

⁶ While the apostles were still with Jesus, they asked him, “Lord, are you now going to give Israel its own king again?”^[a]

⁷ Jesus said to them, “You don't need to know the time of those events that only the Father controls. ^8 (C) But the Holy Spirit will come upon you and give you power. Then you will tell everyone about me in Jerusalem, in all Judea, in Samaria, and everywhere in the world.” ^9 (D) After Jesus had said this and while they were watching, he was taken up into a cloud. They could not see him, ¹⁰ but as he went up, they kept looking up into the sky.

Suddenly two men dressed in white clothes were standing there beside them. ¹¹ They said, “Why are you men from Galilee standing here and looking up into the sky? Jesus has been taken to heaven. But he will come back in the same way you have seen him go.”

Someone To Take the Place of Judas

^12-13 (E) The Mount of Olives was about a kilometer from Jerusalem. The apostles who had gone there were Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon, known as the Eager One,^[b] and Judas the son of James.

After the apostles returned to the city, they went upstairs to the room where they had been staying.

¹⁴ The apostles often met together and prayed with a single purpose in mind.^[c] The women and Mary the mother of Jesus would meet with them, and so would his brothers.