Acts 1:12-26

International Children’s Bible

A New Apostle Is Chosen

¹² Then they went back to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives. (This mountain is about half a mile from Jerusalem.) ¹³ When they entered the city, they went to the upstairs room where they were staying. Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, Simon (known as the Zealot), and Judas son of James were there. ¹⁴ They all continued praying together. Some women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, and Jesus’ brothers were also there with the apostles.

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.