Acts 12:1-8

¹At that time the big boss, called Herod, told his soldiers to grab some of the Christians.

²One of them was James. He, and his young brother called John, were both close followers of Jesus. Herod told his soldiers to kill James with a big knife.

³The Jewish leaders told Herod that they were happy for him to kill James, so Herod told his soldiers to grab Peter too. They grabbed him at the time for the Jewish people to have their ceremony where they ate flat damper.

⁴Herod thought, “I will wait until the end of that ceremony, then I will judge Peter and kill him.” So they put Peter in jail, and Herod told 16 soldiers to guard him there. Those soldiers were in 4 little mobs, with 4 soldiers in each little mob.

⁵Peter stayed there in jail, and the other Christians prayed for him a lot.

⁶That Jewish ceremony was almost finished, and Herod was going to judge Peter the next day, but that night he was still in jail there. There was one soldier on each side of Peter, and they tied each of his hands with chains to those soldiers. Peter was asleep in between them. Other soldiers stood at the gate of the jail.

⁷Suddenly, there was a bright light in that jail cell, and one of God’s angel messengers came and stood in front of Peter. That angel hit him on the side to wake him up, and said, “Quick. Get up.” And the chains fell off Peter’s hands.

⁸Then the angel told him, “Get dressed and put on your shoes.” So Peter did that, then the angel said, “Now put on your coat and follow me.”