Acts 9:15-39

¹⁵But the Lord said to him, “Go, for this man is my chosen instrument to uphold my name before the Gentiles and their kings, and the people of Israel.

¹⁶I will myself show him all that he has to suffer for my name.”

¹⁷So Ananias went, entered the house, and, placing his hands on Saul, said, “Saul, my brother, I have been sent by the Lord — by Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here — so that you may recover your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”

¹⁸Instantly it seemed as if a film fell from Saul's eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptised,

¹⁹and, after he had taken food, he felt his strength return. Saul stayed for some days with the disciples who were at Damascus,

²⁰and at once began in the synagogues to proclaim Jesus as the Son of God.

²¹All who heard him were amazed. “Is not this,” they asked, “the man who worked havoc in Jerusalem amongst those that invoke this name, and who had also come here for the express purpose of having such persons put in chains and taken before the chief priests?”

²²Saul's influence, however, kept steadily increasing, and he confounded the Jewish people who lived in Damascus by the proofs that he gave that Jesus was the Christ.

²³After some time some of them laid a plot to kill Saul,

²⁴but it became known to him. They even watched the gates day and night, to kill him;

²⁵but his disciples let him down by night through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.

²⁶On his arrival in Jerusalem, Saul attempted to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, as they did not believe that he was really a disciple.

²⁷Barnabas, however, taking him by the hand, brought him to the apostles, and told them the whole story of how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord, and how the Lord had talked to him, and how in Damascus he had spoken out fearlessly in the name of Jesus.

²⁸After that, Saul remained in Jerusalem, in close contact with the apostles; and he spoke fearlessly in the name of the Lord,

²⁹talking and arguing with the Jews of foreign birth, who, however, made attempts to kill him.

³⁰But, when the followers found this out, they took him down to Caesarea, and sent him on his way to Tarsus.

³¹And so it came about that the church, throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, enjoyed peace and became firmly established; and, ordering its life by respect for the Lord and the help of the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers.

³²Peter, while travelling from place to place throughout the country, went down to visit the people of Christ living at Lydda.

³³There he found a man named Aeneas, who had been bedridden for eight years with paralysis.

³⁴“Aeneas,” Peter said to him, “Jesus Christ cures you. Get up, and make your bed.” Aeneas got up at once;

³⁵and all the inhabitants of Lydda and of the Plain of Sharon saw him, and came over to the Lord's side.

³⁶At Jaffa there lived a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which is in Greek ‘Dorcas’ — a Gazelle. Her life was spent in doing kind and charitable actions.

³⁷Just at that time she was taken ill, and died; and they had washed her body and laid it out in an upstairs room.

³⁸Jaffa was near Lydda, and the disciples, having heard that Peter was at Lydda, sent two men with the request that he come to them without delay.

³⁹Peter returned with them at once. On his arrival, he was taken upstairs, and all the widows came around him in tears, showing the coats and other clothing which Dorcas had made while she was amongst them.