“Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man clearly attested to you by God with powerful deeds, wonders, and miraculous signs that God performed among you through him, just as you yourselves know –

With many other words he testified and exhorted them saying, “Save yourselves from this perverse generation!”

When they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God courageously.

When Ananias heard these words he collapsed and died, and great fear gripped all who heard about it.

“Go and stand in the temple courts and proclaim to the people all the words of this life.”

So they left the council rejoicing because they had been considered worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name.

So the twelve called the whole group of the disciples together and said, “It is not right for us to neglect the word of God to wait on tables.

But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”

The word of God continued to spread, the number of disciples in Jerusalem increased greatly, and a large group of priests became obedient to the faith.

Then they secretly instigated some men to say, “We have heard this man speaking blasphemous words against Moses and God.”

But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves,’ said God, ‘and after these things they will come out of there and worship me in this place.’

So Moses was trained in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in his words and deeds.

At that time they made an idol in the form of a calf, brought a sacrifice to the idol, and began rejoicing in the works of their hands.

But God turned away from them and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: ‘It was not to me that you offered slain animals and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, was it, house of Israel?

But you took along the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of the god Rephan, the images you made to worship, but I will deport you beyond Babylon.’

Now those who had been forced to scatter went around proclaiming the good news of the word.

Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them.

So after Peter and John had solemnly testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they started back to Jerusalem, proclaiming the good news to many Samaritan villages as they went.

So he got up and went. There he met an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship,

The man replied, “How in the world can I, unless someone guides me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.