Acts 15:5-20

⁵But some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up, saying, “It is necessary to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the Law of Moses.”

⁶So the apostles and the elders came together to consider this matter.

⁷When there had been plenty of discussion, Peter got up and said to them: “Men, brothers, you know that a good while ago God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the message of the Gospel and believe.

⁸And the heart-knowing God acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did to us;

⁹and He made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.

¹⁰Now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?

¹¹Rather, we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same manner as they.”

¹²Then the whole assembly kept silent and listened to Barnabas and Paul reporting what signs and wonders God had done among the ethnic nations through them.

¹³Now when they finished, James reacted saying: “Men, brothers, listen to me.

¹⁴Simeon has described how God first intervened to extract from the Gentiles a people for His name.

¹⁵And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written:

¹⁶‘After these things I will return, and I will rebuild David's tent, the fallen one; yes, I will rebuild its ruins and restore it;

¹⁷so that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles—the ones, that is, upon whom my name has been called—says the Lord who does all these things.’

¹⁸All His works are known to God from eternity.

¹⁹Therefore I judge that we should not create difficulty for those who are turning to God from among the ethnic nations,

²⁰but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from fornication, from what is strangled, and from blood.