Acts 5:27-39

²⁷The soldiers brought the close followers of Jesus to the Jewish council men to talk to them. Then the big boss of the Jewish ceremonies growled at them and said,

²⁸“We told you not to teach about Jesus. But you didn’t listen to us. You told everyone in Jerusalem about him. You want people to think that we killed him. You are blaming us.”

²⁹Peter stood there with the other close followers of Jesus, and he said, “We’ve got to listen to God and do whatever he says, and not listen to people.

³⁰You got men to kill Jesus by nailing him to a cross. But God made him alive again. We Jewish people respect God, and so did our grand-fathers from a long time ago. That same God made Jesus alive again

³¹and gave him the best place in heaven, right next to God himself, on his right side. And God made Jesus our leader, the one that can save us. And God did this so that all the Israel people can turn back to him and stop doing bad things, and then he will not punish them.

³²We saw everything that Jesus did, so we tell everyone all about it. And God gave his Holy Spirit to the people that follow Jesus, and that Holy Spirit does powerful things, to show everyone that what we say is true.”

³³The Jewish council men heard Peter talking like that and they were really angry. They wanted to kill those close followers of Jesus.

³⁴But one of the Jewish council men stood up in the meeting. He was called Gamaliel. He was a Jewish law man, one of the mob called Pharisees. All the people knew he was a good man and they respected him. Gamaliel told the soldiers, “Take these followers of Jesus outside for a while.”

³⁵Then he said to the council men, “Listen, you Israel mob. We have to think carefully now. You want to kill those men, but listen to this.

³⁶A while ago there was a man called Theudas. He got up to fight the Roman government. He told everyone that he was great, and about 400 men listened to him and followed him to fight the Romans. But he died in that fight, and his followers all ran away. So in the end nothing happened.

³⁷After that another man came along. He was called Judas. He came from Galilee country. (The Romans were counting all the people in Judah country at that time.) Judas led a mob of men to fight the Romans, but the Romans killed him too, and chased all his followers away.

³⁸So I’m telling you now, don’t kill those followers of Jesus. Let them go. You see, if normal men told them to do these things and tell people about Jesus, nothing will happen.

³⁹But if God told them to do these things, you can’t stop them. If you try to stop them, you might find yourselves fighting against God.” The Jewish council men listened to Gamaliel and agreed with him.