Acts 1:15-2:13

International Children’s Bible

¹⁵ During this time there was a meeting of the believers. (There were about 120 of them.) Peter stood up and said, ^16-17 “Brothers, in the Scriptures the Holy Spirit said through David that something must happen. The Spirit was talking about Judas, one of our own group, who served together with us. The Spirit said that Judas would lead men to arrest Jesus. ¹⁸ (Judas bought a field with the money he got for his evil act. But Judas fell to his death, his body burst open, and all his intestines poured out.) ¹⁹ Everyone in Jerusalem learned about this. This is why they named the field Akeldama. In their language Akeldama means “field of blood.”) ²⁰ In the book of Psalms, this is written:

And it is also written:

^21-22 “So now a man must join us and become a witness of Jesus’ being raised from death. He must be one of the men who were part of our group during all the time the Lord Jesus was with us. He must have been with us from the time John began to baptize people until the day when Jesus was taken up from us to heaven.”

²³ They put the names of two men before the group. One was Joseph Barsabbas, who was also called Justus. The other was Matthias. ^24-25 The apostles prayed, “Lord, you know the minds of everyone. Show us which one of these two you have chosen to do this work. Judas turned away from it and went where he belongs. Lord, show us which one should take his place as an apostle!” ²⁶ Then they used lots to choose between them, and the lots showed that Matthias was the one. So he became an apostle with the other 11.

The Coming of the Holy Spirit

2 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. ² Suddenly a noise came from heaven. It sounded like a strong wind blowing. This noise filled the whole house where they were sitting. ³ They saw something that looked like flames of fire. The flames were separated and stood over each person there. ⁴ They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they began to speak different languages. The Holy Spirit was giving them the power to speak these languages.

⁵ There were some religious Jews staying in Jerusalem who were from every country in the world. ⁶ When they heard this noise, a crowd came together. They were all surprised, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. ⁷ They were completely amazed at this. They said, “Look! Aren’t all these men that we hear speaking from Galilee?^{[a] 8} But each of us hears them in his own language. How is this possible? We are from different places: ⁹ Parthia, Media, Elam, Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, ¹⁰ Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, the areas of Libya near Cyrene, Rome ¹¹ (both Jews and those who had become Jews), Crete and Arabia. But we hear these men telling in our own languages about the great things God has done!” ¹² They were all amazed and confused. They asked each other, “What does this mean?”

¹³ But others were making fun of them, saying, “They have had too much wine.”