Acts 14:1-15

¹The same thing happened in the town called Iconium. Paul and Barnabas went to the Jewish teaching house and they talked strongly about Jesus to the people there. They stayed in Iconium a long time telling people about Jesus, and they were not frightened of anyone. God helped Paul and Barnabas do powerful things, and this showed that they were telling the true story about Jesus, that he is very good to people. And a big mob of people believed everything Paul and Barnabas told them. Some of them were Jews and some were not Jews. But some other Jews didn’t believe in Jesus and they talked to some local men and got them to hate the Christians.

⁴The people of Iconium split up into 2 mobs. One mob reckoned Paul and Barnabas were right and the other mob reckoned the Jews that didn’t believe in Jesus were right.

⁵Then some of those people, and their leaders, talked with each other about hurting Paul and Barnabas and killing them with stones. Some of that mob were Jews, and some were not Jews.

⁶But somebody told Paul and Barnabas what they wanted to do, so Paul and Barnabas ran away to the country called Lycaonia. They went to the towns called Lystra and Derbe, and to the country around those towns,

⁷and they told people the good news about Jesus.

⁸In Lystra there was a man that was born crippled. He never walked in his life.

⁹He was sitting there listening to Paul talking to the people. Paul looked straight at him, and then Paul knew that this man believed that Jesus can make him better.

¹⁰So Paul shouted at him, “Stand up on your feet.” And the man jumped up and started to walk around.

¹¹A big mob of people saw Paul do that, and they yelled out in their own Lycaonian language, “The gods turned themselves into men and they came here to us.”

¹²And those people reckoned Barnabas was their god called Zeus and they reckoned Paul was their god called Hermes, because Paul did all the talking.

¹³There was a house for Zeus just outside the town, and there was a man there that looked after the ceremonies for Zeus. That man, with all the people, got some bulls and some flowers, and took them to the gates of the town. They wanted to show respect to Paul and Barnabas, just like they always showed respect to their gods. They were going to kill those bulls for them, and they were going to give them the flowers too.

¹⁴But somebody told Paul and Barnabas what they wanted to do, and then Paul and Barnabas tore their clothes to show them they were upset, and they ran into the crowd of people. They shouted,

¹⁵“Hey, you fellows, what are you doing? Why are you doing this? We are just men, like you. We are telling you good news, and we are saying that you have to stop showing respect to things that are not the true God. You have to turn around and follow the God that is alive. He made the sky and the earth and the sea and everything in them.