ACTS 15:7-21

⁷And when there had been much questioning, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel, and believe.

⁸And God, which knoweth the heart, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us;

⁹and he made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith.

¹⁰Now therefore why tempt ye God, that ye should put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

¹¹But we believe that we shall be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in like manner as they.

¹²And all the multitude kept silence; and they hearkened unto Barnabas and Paul rehearsing what signs and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles by them.

¹³And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Brethren, hearken unto me:

¹⁴Symeon hath rehearsed how first God did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name.

¹⁵And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written,

¹⁶After these things I will return, And I will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen; And I will build again the ruins thereof, And I will set it up:

¹⁷That the residue of men may seek after the Lord, And all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called,

¹⁸Saith the Lord, who maketh these things known from the beginning of the world.

¹⁹Wherefore my judgment is, that we trouble not them which from among the Gentiles turn to God;

²⁰but that we write unto them, that they abstain from the pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from what is strangled, and from blood.

²¹For Moses from generations of old hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath.