Acts 11:1-18

New Testament for Everyone

Controversy and vindication

11 The apostles, and the brothers and sisters with them in Judaea, heard that the Gentiles had received the word of God. ² So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, those who wanted to emphasize circumcision took issue with him.

³ “Why did you do it?” they asked. “Why did you go in to visit uncircumcised men and eat with them?”

⁴ So Peter began to explain it all, step by step.

⁵ “I was in the town of Joppa,” he said, “and I was praying. I was in a trance, and I saw a vision: something like a great sail suspended by its four corners was let down from heaven, and came towards me. ⁶ I stared at it, then I began to look in, and I saw four-footed land animals, wild beasts, reptiles and birds of the air. ⁷ I heard a voice, saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter! Kill and eat!’ ⁸ ‘Certainly not, Lord,’ I replied. ‘Nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth!’ ⁹ Then the voice came from heaven a second time: ‘What God made clean, you must not regard as common.’ ¹⁰ All this happened three times, and then the whole lot was drawn back up into heaven.

¹¹ “Just then, suddenly, three men appeared at the house where I was, sent to me from Caesarea. ¹² The spirit told me to go with them, without raising scrupulous objections. These six brothers also came with me, and we went into the man’s house. ¹³ He told us that he had seen an angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and fetch Simon called Peter, ¹⁴ who will speak to you words by which you and all your house will be saved.’ ¹⁵ As I began to speak, the holy spirit fell on them, just as the spirit did on us at the beginning. ¹⁶ And I remembered the word which the Lord had spoken: ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the holy spirit.’

¹⁷ “So, then,” Peter concluded, “if God gave them the same gift as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus the Messiah, who was I to stand in the way of God?”

¹⁸ When they heard this, they had nothing more to say. They praised God.

“Well, then,” they declared, “God has given the Gentiles, too, the repentance that leads to life!”