Acts 10:4-17

⁴Cornelius stared at the angel and became terrified. Then he asked fearfully, “Sir, what do you (sg) want?” The angel answered him, “You (sg) have pleased God because you have been praying regularly to him and you often give money to help poor people. Those things have been like a sacrifice to God.

⁵So, now command some men to go to Joppa and tell them to bring back a man named Simon whose other name is Peter.

⁶He is staying with a man, also named Simon, who makes leather. His house is near the ocean.”

⁷When the angel who spoke to Cornelius had gone, Cornelius summoned two of his household servants and a soldier who served him, one who also worshipped God.

⁸He explained to them everything that the angel had said. Then he told them to go to Joppa to ask Peter to come to Caesarea.

⁹About noon the next day those three men were traveling along the road and were coming near Joppa. As they were approaching Joppa, Peter went up on the flat housetop to pray.

¹⁰He became hungry and wanted something to eat. While someone was preparing the food, Peter saw this vision:

¹¹◄He saw heaven open/He saw an opening in the sky► and something like a large sheet was being lowered to the ground. It was tied at its four corners with ropes.

¹²Inside the sheet were all kinds of creatures. These included animals and birds that the Mosaic laws forbade Jews to eat. Some had four feet, others crawled on the ground, and others were wild birds.

¹³Then he heard God SYN say to him, “Peter, stand up, kill and cook some of these and eat their meat!”

¹⁴But Peter replied, “Lord, surely you (sg) do not really want me to do that! I have never eaten any meat that our Jewish law says is unacceptable to God or something that we(exc) must not eat!”

¹⁵Then Peter heard MTY God talk to him a second time. He said, “ I am God, so if I have made something acceptable to eat, do not say that it is not acceptable to eat!”

¹⁶This happened three times, so Peter knew that he had to think carefully about what it might mean. Immediately after God had said that the third time, ◄ the sheet with the animals and birds was the pulled back into heaven/ someone pulled the sheet with the animals and birds up into the sky again►.

¹⁷While Peter was trying to understand what that vision meant, the men who had been sent by Cornelius {whom Cornelius had sent} arrived in Joppa. They asked people how to get to Simon's house. So they found his house and were standing outside the gate.