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Acts 12:1-19
/RSS FeedActs 12:1-19
1 About that time, King Herod reached out to harm some who belonged to the church.
2 He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword.
3 And seeing that this pleased the Jews, Herod proceeded to seize Peter during the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
4 He arrested him and put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out to the people after the Passover.
The Rescue of Peter 5 So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was fervently praying to God for him.
6 On the night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, with sentries standing guard at the entrance to the prison.
7 Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He tapped Peter on the side and woke him up, saying, “Get up quickly.” And the chains fell off his wrists.
8 “Get dressed and put on your sandals,” said the angel. Peter did so, and the angel told him, “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.”
9 So Peter followed him out, but he was unaware that what the angel was doing was real. He thought he was only seeing a vision.
10 They passed the first and second guards and came to the iron gate leading to the city, which opened for them by itself. When they had gone outside and walked the length of one block, the angel suddenly left him.
11 Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I know for sure that the Lord has sent His angel and rescued me from Herod’s grasp and from everything the Jewish people were anticipating.”
12 And when he had realized this, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered together and were praying.
13 He knocked at the outer gate, and a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer it.
14 When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed that she forgot to open the gate, but ran inside and announced, “Peter is standing at the gate!”
15 “You are out of your mind,” they told her. But when she kept insisting it was so, they said, “It must be his angel.”
16 But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astounded.
17 Peter motioned with his hand for silence, and he described how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. “Send word to James and to the brothers,” he said, and he left for another place.
18 At daybreak there was no small commotion among the soldiers as to what had become of Peter.
19 After Herod had searched for him unsuccessfully, he examined the guards and ordered that they be executed. Then he went down from Judea to Caesarea and spent some time there. -
John 7:1-24
/RSS FeedJohn 7:1-24
1 After this, Jesus traveled throughout Galilee. He did not want to travel in Judea, because the Jews there were trying to kill Him.
2 However, the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles was near.
3 So Jesus’ brothers said to Him, “Leave here and go to Judea, so that Your disciples there may see the works You are doing.
4 For no one who wants to be known publicly acts in secret. Since You are doing these things, show Yourself to the world.”
5 For even His own brothers did not believe in Him.
6 Therefore Jesus told them, “Although your time is always at hand, My time has not yet come.
7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me, because I testify that its works are evil.
8 Go up to the feast on your own. I am not going up to this feast, because My time has not yet come.”
9 Having said this, Jesus remained in Galilee.
10 But after His brothers had gone up to the feast, He also went—not publicly, but in secret.
11 So the Jews were looking for Him at the feast and asking, “Where is He?”
12 Many in the crowds were whispering about Him. Some said, “He is a good man.” But others replied, “No, He deceives the people.”
13 Yet no one would speak publicly about Him for fear of the Jews.
14 About halfway through the feast, Jesus went up to the temple courts and began to teach.
15 The Jews were amazed and asked, “How did this man attain such learning without having studied?”
16 “My teaching is not My own,” Jesus replied. “It comes from Him who sent Me.
17 If anyone desires to do His will, he will know whether My teaching is from God or whether I speak on My own.
18 He who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory, but He who seeks the glory of the One who sent Him is a man of truth; in Him there is no falsehood.
19 Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps it. Why are you trying to kill Me?”
20 “You have a demon,” the crowd replied. “Who is trying to kill You?”
21 Jesus answered them, “I did one miracle, and you are all amazed.
22 But because Moses gave you circumcision, you circumcise a boy on the Sabbath (not that it is from Moses, but from the patriarchs.)
23 If a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses will not be broken, why are you angry with Me for making the whole man well on the Sabbath?
24 Stop judging by outward appearances, and start judging justly.”
