Acts 8:14-35

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!”

²⁴Then Simon answered, “Pray to the Lord God that he will not do to me what you just said!”

²⁵After Peter and John told people there what they knew personally about the Lord Jesus and declared to them the message about Jesus, they both returned to Jerusalem. Along the way they preached the good message about Jesus to people in many villages in Samaria province.

²⁶One day an angel whom the Lord God had sent commanded Philip, “Get ready and go south along the road that extends from Jerusalem to Gaza.” That was a road in a desert area.

²⁷So Philip got ready and went along that road. Suddenly he met a man from Ethiopia. He was an important official who took care of all the funds for the queen of Ethiopia. In his language people called their queen Candace. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship God,

²⁸and he was returning home and was seated riding in his chariot. As he was riding, he was reading out loud from what the prophet Isaiah had written MTY long ago.

²⁹God's Spirit told Philip, “Go near to that chariot and keep walking close to the man who is riding in it!”

³⁰So Philip ran to the chariot and kept running close to it. Then he heard the official reading what the prophet Isaiah had written. He asked the man, “Do you (sg) understand what you are reading?”

³¹He answered Philip, “ No! ◄I cannot possibly understand it if there is no one to explain it to me!/How can I understand it if there is no one to explain it to me?► RHQ” Acts 8:31b-35 Then the man said to Philip, “Please come up and sit beside me.” So Philip did that.

³²The part of the Scriptures that the official was reading was this: He will be silent when they lead him away to kill him like when a sheep is led away to be killed. As a young sheep is silent when its wool is being cut off {someone cuts off its wool}, similarly he will not protest MTY when people cause him to suffer.

³³When he will be humiliated by being accused falsely {people will humiliate him by accusing him falsely}, the rulers ◄will not consider him innocent/will consider him guilty►. No one will possibly be able to tell about his descendants, because he will be killed {people will kill him} without him having any descendants on the earth.

³⁴The official asked Philip about these words that he was reading, “Tell me, who was the prophet writing about? Was he writing about himself or about someone else?”

³⁵So Philip began to explain that Scripture passage. He told him the good message about MTY Jesus. So the official understood and believed in Jesus.