Acts 4:4-27

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.”

¹⁸So those leaders called Peter and John back to the meeting. They told them, “Don’t you talk to any other people about Jesus. Don’t you teach anyone about him.”

¹⁹But Peter and John said to those leaders, “Do you think that God wants us to listen to you? Or do you think he wants us to listen to him, and do the things he says? What do you reckon? We know he wants us to do whatever he says,

²⁰and we can’t stop now. We have to talk about the things that we have seen and heard.”

²¹The leaders couldn’t think of any way to punish Peter and John. They knew that all the people were saying that God made that man better, so God is really great and really good. That man was more than 40 years old. So those bosses again told Peter and John, “Don’t you talk about Jesus any more or we’ll give you big trouble.” Then they let them go free.

²³Peter and John left that meeting and went back to the other people that believed in Jesus. They told them everything that the big bosses of the Jewish ceremonies and the older leaders said.

²⁴They listened to Peter and John and then they all prayed to God together. They said to him, “God, you are the boss of everything. You made the sky, and the earth, and the sea, and everything in them.

²⁵The Holy Spirit talked to your man David, our grand-father of a long time ago, and the Holy Spirit told him to write this in God’s book. David wrote, ‘The people from different countries are really angry and they are talking about doing something stupid, something that will not work.

²⁶Their bosses and leaders are getting ready to fight. They want to get together to fight against God, and they want to fight against the man God picked to be his special person.’

²⁷And now that has happened. The message that David wrote has now come true. Those bosses called Herod and Pontius Pilate come from different countries. They, and some of their countrymen, they all met together in this city. And they met with Jewish people too. They tried to work out a way to get rid of Jesus, your special worker that you sent to us. But you, God, are the one with power, and you knew everything they were going to do, and you let them do it.