Acts 9:15-40

¹⁵But Jesus said to Ananias, “Don’t worry. Go to him anyway. You see, I picked that man to be my special worker. He will tell a lot of people about me. He will tell Jewish people about me, and he will even tell those people that are not Jews about me. And he will tell the bosses of their countries about me too.

¹⁶I will show him that some people will not like him talking about me, so they will give him big trouble and hurt him.”

¹⁷So Ananias got up and went to that house that Judas lived in, and he went inside, and he put his hands on Saul, and he said, “Brother Saul. You saw Jesus on the road as you were coming here. Well, he has sent me so that you can see again, and the Holy Spirit will come into you and fill you.”

¹⁸Then something like fish scales, or like finger nails, they fell down from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up, and they baptised him.

¹⁹Then he ate some food and he got strong again. Saul stayed in Damascus for a few days with the people that followed Jesus.

²⁰Straight away he started talking to the Jews in their meeting places. He told them, “Jesus is God’s son.”

²¹All the Jews that heard him were really shocked. They said, “Hey, this man has really changed. He’s the man that really hurt the people in Jerusalem that followed Jesus. And he came here to grab the people that follow Jesus here. He was going to tie them up with chains and take them back to the Jewish bosses in Jerusalem.”

²²But Saul told those people about Jesus, and he got better and better at talking to them. The Jews in Damascus argued with him, but he showed them that Jesus really is the man that God promised to send. Those Jews couldn’t show that he was wrong, and they got worried and upset.

²³After that some Jews talked with each other about killing Saul. There was a big wall around that town with some gates in it. Every day and every night the Jews watched those gates. They thought they might see Saul going out of the town, and then they will catch him and kill him. But somebody told Saul about them.

²⁵So the new Christians helped Saul get away. They got a big basket and they took Saul to that big wall in the night. They went up high to a hole in that wall. Then they tied ropes to the basket and put Saul in it, and lowered it down through that hole, down to the ground outside the wall. Then Saul got out of the basket and ran away.

²⁶After that Saul went to Jerusalem and tried to join with the people there that followed Jesus. But they didn’t believe that he followed Jesus too. They were afraid of him, so they kept away from him. They didn’t let him join with them.

²⁷But a Christian man called Barnabas listened to Saul and took him to the close followers of Jesus and told them Paul’s story. He said, “On the way to Damascus, Saul saw our leader, Jesus, and Jesus talked to him. After that Saul told the people in Damascus about Jesus. He wasn’t afraid of them.”

²⁸Those church leaders in Jerusalem believed Barnabas, so Saul stayed there with them and let the Jerusalem people see him with them. He talked to everyone about Jesus and wasn’t afraid of anyone.

²⁹There were some Jewish people in Jerusalem that talked the Greek language. Saul told them to believe in Jesus, but they argued with him. Then they got upset and tried to kill him.

³⁰The Christians heard about this, so they took Saul to the town called Caesarea and put him on a ship, and sent him back to his home town, called Tarsus.

³¹Then, at last, everything settled down and was quiet for the Christians in the churches in Judea, Galilee and Samaria countries. They respected their leader Jesus more, and they followed him more properly, and the Holy Spirit helped them feel strong, so that more people joined them and believed in Jesus.

³²After that, Peter went around visiting God’s people that lived in Judea country, and he went to the town called Lydda.

³³He met a man there called Aeneas. About 8 years before that time Aeneas got crippled. He couldn’t move, so he just lay in bed for 8 years till Peter came along.

³⁴Peter said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ makes you better. Get up and roll up your mat.” Aeneas got better right then, and he stood up.

³⁵All the people in Lydda saw him, and the other people in that flat country called Sharon, they all saw him too, and a lot of them changed their ways and believed in Jesus.

³⁶There was a woman called Tabitha that lived in a town called Joppa. She was a follower of Jesus. (Her name in the Greek language was Dorcas.) She always did good things and helped poor people.

³⁷But she got sick and died. The Christian people washed her body and put it in a room upstairs in her house.

³⁸Joppa was near Lydda, and the people in Joppa that followed Jesus heard that Peter was in Lydda. So they sent 2 men to Lydda and they asked him, “Please come to Joppa with us right now.”

³⁹So Peter went with those 2 men. After he got there the Christians took him to the house and then they all went upstairs. They stood there with Peter, and the widows cried and showed him the shirts and other clothes that Dorcas made for them while she was still alive.

⁴⁰Peter told everyone to go outside. Then he got down on his knees, to show respect to God, and he prayed, then he turned and looked at the body, and said, “Tabitha, get up.” She opened her eyes, then she saw Peter and sat up.