1Among the people in the congregation at Antioch there were ◄prophets/those who spoke messages from God► and those who taught people about Jesus. They were Barnabas; Simeon, who was also called Niger/Blackman; Lucius, from Cyrene city; Manaen, who had grown up with King Herod Antipas; and Saul.
2While they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said to them, “Appoint Barnabas and Saul to serve me and to go and do the work that I have chosen them to do!”
3So they continued ◄to fast/to abstain from eating food► and pray. Then having put their hands on Barnabas and Saul and praying that God would help them, they sent them off to do what the Holy Spirit had commanded.
4Barnabas and Saul, guided by the Holy Spirit, went down from Antioch to Seleucia port. From there they went by ship to Salamis port on Cyprus Island.
5While they were in Salamis, they went to the Jewish meeting places. There they proclaimed the message from God about Jesus. John Mark went with them and was helping them.
6The three of them went across the entire island to Paphos city. There they met a magician whose name was Bar-Jesus. He was a Jew who falsely claimed ◄to be a prophet/to speak messages from God►.
7He often accompanied the governor of the island, Sergius Paulus, who was an intelligent man. The governor sent someone to ask Barnabas and Saul to come to him, because he wanted to hear God's message. So Barnabas and Saul came and told him about Jesus.
8However, the magician, whose name was Elymas in the Greek language, was opposing them. He repeatedly tried to persuade the governor not to believe in Jesus.
9Then Saul, who now called himself Paul, empowered by the Holy Spirit, looked intently at the magician and said,
10“You (sg) are serving the devil and you oppose everything that is good! You are always lying to people and doing other evil things to them. ◄You must stop saying that the truth about the Lord God is a lot of lies!/When will you stop changing what is true about the Lord God and saying what is not true about him?► RHQ
11Right now the Lord God MTY is going to punish you! You will become blind and not even be able to see light for some time.” At once he became blind, as though he was in a dark mist, and he groped about, searching for someone to hold him by the hand and lead him.
12When the governor saw what had happened to Elymas, he believed in the Lord Jesus. He was amazed by what Paul and Barnabas were teaching about the Lord Jesus.
13After that, Paul and the two men with him went by ship from Paphos to Perga port in Pamphylia province. At Perga John Mark left them and returned to his home in Jerusalem.
14Then Paul and Barnabas traveled by land from Perga, and arrived in Antioch city near Pisidia district in Galatia province. ◄On the Sabbath/On the Jewish rest day► they entered the synagogue/the Jewish meeting place and sat down.
15Someone read aloud from what Moses had written. Then someone read from what the other prophets had written MTY. Then the leaders of the Jewish meeting place gave someone this note to take to Paul and Barnabas: “Fellow Jews, if one of you wants to speak to the people here to encourage them, please speak to us(exc) now.”
16So Paul stood up and motioned with his right hand so that the people would listen to him. Then he said, “Fellow Israelis and you non-Jewish people who also worship God, please listen to me!
17God, whom we (inc) Israelis worship, chose our ancestors to be his people, and he caused them to become very numerous while they were foreigners living in Egypt. Then after many years, God helped them MTY powerfully and led them out of there.
18Even though they repeatedly disobeyed him, he cared for them for about forty years while they were in the desert.
19He enabled the Israelis to conquer seven tribal groups who were then living in Canaan region, and he gave their land to us Israelis for us to possess.
20Our ancestors began to possess Canaan about 450 years after their ancestors had arrived in Egypt.” Acts 13:20b-22 “After that, God appointed leaders to rule the Israeli people. Those leaders continued to rule our people until the time when the prophet Samuel ruled them.
21Then, while Samuel was still their leader, the people demanded that he appoint a king to rule them. So God appointed Saul, the son of Kish, from the tribe of Benjamin, to be their king. He ruled them for forty years.
22After God had rejected Saul from being king, he appointed David to be their king. God said about him, ‘I have observed that David, son of Jesse, is exactly the kind of man that I desire IDM. He will do everything that I want him to do.’ ”
23“From among David's descendants, God brought one of them, Jesus, to us Israeli people to save us, just like he had told David and our other ancestors that he would do.
24Before Jesus began his work, John the Baptizer preached to all of our Israeli people who came to him. He told them that they should turn away from their sinful behavior and ask God to forgive them. Then he would baptize them.
25When John was about to finish the work that God gave him to do, he frequently said to the people, ‘Do you think RHQ that I am the Messiah whom God promised to send? No, I am not. But listen! The Messiah will soon come. He is so much greater than I am that I am not even important enough to be his slave MET.’”
26“Fellow Israelis, you who are descendants of Abraham, and you non-Jewish people who also worship God, please listen! It is to all of us that God has sent the message about how he saves people.
27The people who were living in Jerusalem and their rulers did not realize that this man Jesus was the one whom God had sent to save them. Although messages from MTY the prophets have been read aloud {someone has read aloud messages from MTY the prophets} every ◄Sabbath/Jewish day of rest►, they did not understand what the prophets wrote about the Messiah. So the Jewish leaders condemned Jesus to die, which was just like the prophets predicted.
Acts 13
Acts 13:1-27