Acts 4:1-17

¹Peter and John were still talking to the people, then some Jewish boss men got up and came to them. Those bosses were the men that look after the Jewish ceremonies, and the boss of the soldiers that looked after God’s ceremony house, and some men called Sadducees. They all came to Peter and John.

²They heard Peter and John teaching the people and saying that God will make people alive, just like he made Jesus alive. And those boss men were really angry.

³So they grabbed Peter and John. Those boss men wanted to take them to court, but it was already late in the afternoon, so the soldiers locked up Peter and John in jail to wait until the next day.

⁴But already a lot of the people listened to Peter and John, and they believed everything those 2 men said, and they started to follow Jesus. More and more people started to follow Jesus until there were about 5,000 men following him at that time.

⁵The next day all the Jewish leaders met together for a court in the city called Jerusalem. They were the Jewish bosses, and the leaders of the Jewish ceremonies, and the men that taught about Jewish law.

⁶The big boss of all the Jewish ceremonies, called Annas, was there. Some of his family were there, the men called Caiaphas, and John, and Alexander, and some other men too.

⁷That boss mob got Peter and John to stand there in the middle of them, and they said, “This man couldn’t walk. He was crippled. What power did you use to make this man better? And who told you to do that?”

⁸The Holy Spirit was in Peter and told him what to say. He said, “Listen, all you leaders and bosses.

⁹You are asking us now about the good thing we did for this crippled man. You are asking us about the way we made him better.

¹⁰We used the power of Jesus Christ to make this man better. We want you, and all our Israel countrymen, to know about Jesus, the man from Nazareth. You nailed him to a cross and killed him, but God made him alive again.

¹¹You know, a long time ago one of God’s men told a picture story about you boss mob, and about Jesus. He wrote this in God’s book, ‘You boss builders reckoned that a stone was rubbish, so you threw it away. But now that stone is the most important one of all.’

¹²You see, Jesus is the only one that can save people. God didn’t send anyone else to save us. Jesus is the only one in the world that has power to save people.”

¹³The leaders knew that Peter and John were ordinary men that never went to bible school, but they were not frightened to talk back to those bosses. So those leaders were shocked. Then they remembered that Peter and John were friends of Jesus, and often listened to him.

¹⁴And those leaders saw the man that used to be crippled. He stood right there next to Peter and John. So those leaders couldn’t say anything bad about Peter and John.

¹⁵So they told Peter and John to go out of the meeting, and then they talked to each other.

¹⁶They said, “It’s hard for us to punish those 2 men. Everyone in Jerusalem knows they did that powerful thing, they made that crippled man better. We can’t say that it isn’t true.

¹⁷But we have to stop people talking about it. So we will tell those 2 men not to talk to anyone about Jesus again, and if they do we will make trouble for those 2 men.”