²⁰ We cannot stop telling about everything we have seen and heard.”

¹⁵ For you are to be his witness, telling everyone what you have seen and heard.

¹⁶ Yet preaching the Good News is not something I can boast about. I am compelled by God to do it. How terrible for me if I didn’t preach the Good News!

¹⁷ If I were doing this on my own initiative, I would deserve payment. But I have no choice, for God has given me this sacred trust.

Introduction

1 We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning,^[a] whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life. ² This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us. ³ We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

³² We are witnesses of these things and so is the Holy Spirit, who is given by God to those who obey him.”

³⁹ “And we apostles are witnesses of all he did throughout Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a cross,^{[a] 40} but God raised him to life on the third day. Then God allowed him to appear, ⁴¹ not to the general public,^[b] but to us whom God had chosen in advance to be his witnesses. We were those who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.

¹¹ Then go to your people in exile and say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says!’ Do this whether they listen to you or not.”

⁵ And after Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul spent all his time preaching the word. He testified to the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah.