Acts 8:12-23

¹²But then they believed Philip's message when he preached to them about how God desires to rule MET the lives of people who believe in him, and about Jesus being the Messiah MTY. Both the men and the women who believed in Jesus were baptized. { Philip was baptizing both the men and the women who had come to believe in Jesus}.

¹³Simon himself believed Philip's message and, after he was baptized {after Philip baptized him}, he began to constantly accompany Philip. Simon was continually amazed because he often saw Philip doing many kinds of miraculous things.

¹⁴When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that many people PRS throughout Samaria district had believed the message from God about Jesus, they sent Peter and John there.

¹⁵When Peter and John arrived in Samaria, they prayed for those new believers in order that the Holy Spirit's power would come to them.

¹⁶Peter and John realized that the Holy Spirit had not yet begun to empower any of them. They had been baptized { Philip had baptized them} because they had believed in MTY the Lord Jesus, but they did not know about the Holy Spirit.

¹⁷Then Peter and John placed their hands on the heads of each person, and they received the power of MTY the Holy Spirit.

¹⁸Simon saw things that convinced him that God had given the Spirit's power to people as a result of the apostles placing their hands on them. So he offered to give money to the apostles,

¹⁹saying, “Enable me also to do what you are doing, so that everyone on whom I place/put my hands may receive the Holy Spirit's power.”

²⁰But Peter said to him, “May you (sg) and your money go to hell, because you mistakenly think that you can buy from us what God alone gives to people

²¹God has not authorized you to have any part of this ministry of giving the Holy Spirit's power, because he knows that you are not thinking rightly! (OR, because he knows that you are thinking completely wrongly.)

²²So stop thinking wickedly like that, and plead that the Lord, if he is willing, will forgive you for what you wickedly thought/planned to do

²³Turn away from your evil ways, because I perceive that you (sg) are extremely envious of us, and you are a slave of your continual desire to do evil! God will certainly punish you severely!”