Acts

Williams^{(i) 1} I wrote my first volume, Theophilus, about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning ² up to the day when through the Holy Spirit He gave the apostles whom He had chosen their orders, and then was taken up to heaven. ³ After He had suffered, He had shown Himself alive to them, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them through a period of forty days, and telling them the things about the kingdom of God. ⁴ And once while He was eating with them, He charged them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for what the Father had promised. "You have heard me speak of it," He said, ⁵ "for John baptized people in water, but in a few days you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit." ⁶ So those who were present began to ask Him, "Lord, is this the time when you are going to set up the kingdom again for Israel?" ⁷ He answered them, "It is not your business to learn times and dates which the Father has a right to fix, ⁸ but you are going to receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you must be witnesses for me in Jerusalem and all over Judea and Samaria, and to the very ends of the earth." ⁹ After saying this, He was taken up while they were looking at Him, and a cloud swept under Him and carried Him out of their sight. ¹⁰ And while they were gazing after Him into heaven, two men dressed in white suddenly stood beside them, ¹¹ and said to them, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into heaven? This very Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come back in just the way you have seen Him go up into heaven." ¹² Then they returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, which is near Jerusalem, only half a mile away. ¹³ When they reached the city, they went to the room upstairs where they had been staying; they were: Peter and John, James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alpheus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James. ¹⁴ With one mind they were all continuing to devote themselves to prayer, with the women and Mary and His brothers. ¹⁵ At that time Peter got up among the brothers (there were about a hundred and twenty present) and said, ¹⁶ "Brothers, that Scripture had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit uttered by the mouth of David in the former times about Judas who became the guide to those who arrested Jesus; ¹⁷ for he was one of our number, and he received a share in this ministry of ours. ¹⁸ (This man bought a piece of land with the money which he took for his treachery, and he fell there face downward and his body broke in two, and all his intestines poured out. ¹⁹ It became known to all the residents of Jerusalem, so that this piece of land was called in their language Akeldamach, that is, The Field of Blood.) ²⁰ For in the Book of Psalms it is written: 'Let his estate be desolate, and let no one live on it,' and 'Let someone else take his position.' ²¹ "So one of these men who have been associated with us all the time the Lord Jesus came and went among us, ²² from the time of His baptism by John down to the day when He was taken up from us, must be added to our number as a witness to His resurrection." ²³ Then they nominated two men, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called Justus, and Matthias. ²⁴ And they prayed, saying, "Lord, you who know the hearts of all, show us which one of these two men you have chosen ²⁵ to take a share in this service as an apostle, from which Judas fell away to go to his own place." ²⁶ They then drew lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was added to the eleven apostles.