Acts 4:8-21

⁸So as the Holy Spirit completely controlled Peter, he said to them, “You fellow Israelites who rule us and all of you other elders, listen!

⁹Today you are questioning us concerning our doing something good for a man who was crippled, and you asked us how he was healed.

¹⁰So we(exc) want you and all of our other fellow Israelites to know this: It is because Jesus the Messiah MTY from Nazareth healed this man that he is able to stand here. God considers that it was you who nailed Jesus to a cross, but God caused him to become alive again.

¹¹In the Psalms this was written about the Messiah: He is like MET the stone that was rejected by the builders {that the builders rejected}. But that stone became the most important stone in the building that they were building. Jesus is that stone, and you are those builders who threw away the stone that was the most important one.

¹²So he alone can save us MTY. God has sent only one person MTY into the world who can save us from the guilt of our sins, and that person is Jesus!”

¹³The Jewish leaders realized that Peter and John ◄were not afraid of them/spoke boldly►. They also learned that the two men were ordinary people who had not studied in schools. So the leaders were amazed, and they realized that these men had associated with Jesus.

¹⁴They also saw the man who had been healed standing there with the two of them, so they were not able to say anything to oppose Peter and John.

¹⁵So the Jewish leaders commanded guards to take Peter, John, and the man outside of the room where those leaders were meeting. After they did so, the leaders talked with each other about Peter and John.

¹⁶Being frustrated, one after another, they said, “◄There is really nothing that we can do to punish these two men!/How can we (inc) do anything to punish these two men?► RHQ Almost everyone HYP who is living in Jerusalem knows that they have done an amazing miracle, so we cannot tell people that it did not happen!

¹⁷However, we must not allow other people to hear about this miracle. So we must tell these men that we will punish them if they continue to tell other people about this MTY man who they say gave them the power to do it.”

¹⁸So the Jewish leaders commanded guards to bring the two apostles into that room again. After they did so, they commanded them both that they should never speak about Jesus, and they should not teach anyone about him MTY again.

¹⁹But Peter and John replied, “Would God think that it is right for us two to obey you and not to obey him? We(exc) will let you decide which of those you think is proper.

²⁰But as for us, we cannot obey you. We will not stop telling people about the things that we (exc) have seen Jesus do and what we have heard him teach.”

²¹Then the Jewish leaders again told Peter and John not to disobey them. But all the people there were praising God about what had happened to the lame man. The leaders knew that only God could have enabled Peter and John to miraculously heal the man, because the man was more than forty years old and he was lame when his mother bore him. They also knew that the people would become angry if they punished the two apostles. So, because they could not decide how to punish Peter and John, they finally let them go.