Acts 13:38-50

³⁸You see, my friends I’m telling you this message. Jesus died for us, so if we believe in him God will not say we are guilty for the bad things we did. The law that Moses gave us can’t make us right and good, so that God will not say we are guilty. But if anyone believes in Jesus, God will make them right and good.

⁴⁰A long time ago God got some of his men to tell people this. They wrote in his book, ‘Listen. You people make fun of God, but I will do something that you will not believe, even if somebody tells you about it. You will be really shocked, and then you will die.’ So you people be careful. Don’t be like those people that God’s men wrote about.” That is the message that Paul told the people in that meeting in Antioch.

⁴²Then the meeting finished, and Paul and Barnabas started to go out of that meeting house. Some of the people asked them, “Can you come back the next Saturday and tell us more about those things?” And a lot of Jews and other people that respected God followed Paul and Barnabas. Paul and Barnabas talked with them and told them to keep on trusting God, and keep letting him help them.

⁴⁴The next Saturday nearly all the people in that town came together to hear God’s message about Jesus.

⁴⁵But the Jewish leaders saw those big mobs of people and they got really jealous. They started saying bad things to the people about Paul, and they said, “Paul is telling lies. His message about Jesus is not true.”

⁴⁶Paul and Barnabas were not frightened of them. They said, “God sent us to tell his message to you Jews first. But you wouldn’t listen to it, and that shows us that you don’t want to live for ever with God. So now we will tell that message to people that are not Jews.

⁴⁷You see, God told us to do this. It’s in God’s book. He said, ‘I gave you this job, to be like a light for the people that are not Jews. You will tell people everywhere in the world that I can save them.’”

⁴⁸Those people that were not Jews heard these words and they were very happy. They said, “Thank you God for this message. It is really good.” And a lot of people there believed in Jesus. You see, a long time before this God picked those people to live with him for ever.

⁴⁹And those people told God’s message about Jesus to other people, and a lot of people all over that country heard that word from God.

⁵⁰But the Jewish leaders made trouble for Paul and Barnabas. There were some important women in that town that were not Jews but they respected God. And there were some important men there too. The Jewish leaders said bad things to them about Paul and Barnabas, so that they made big trouble for them. They made so much trouble that Paul and Barnabas had to leave that place.