Acts 8:26-40

Living Bible

²⁶ But as for Philip, an angel of the Lord said to him, “Go over to the road that runs from Jerusalem through the Gaza Desert, arriving around noon.” ²⁷ So he did, and who should be coming down the road but the Treasurer of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen. He had gone to Jerusalem to worship ²⁸ and was now returning in his chariot, reading aloud from the book of the prophet Isaiah.

²⁹ The Holy Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and walk along beside the chariot.”

³⁰ Philip ran over and heard what he was reading and asked, “Do you understand it?”

³¹ “Of course not!” the man replied. “How can I when there is no one to instruct me?” And he begged Philip to come up into the chariot and sit with him.

³² The passage of Scripture he had been reading from was this:

“He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb is silent before the shearers, so he opened not his mouth; ³³ in his humiliation, justice was denied him; and who can express the wickedness of the people of his generation?^[a] For his life is taken from the earth.”

³⁴ The eunuch asked Philip, “Was Isaiah talking about himself or someone else?”

³⁵ So Philip began with this same Scripture and then used many others to tell him about Jesus.

³⁶ As they rode along, they came to a small body of water, and the eunuch said, “Look! Water! Why can’t I be baptized?”

^37 [b]“You can,” Philip answered, “if you believe with all your heart.”

And the eunuch replied, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”

³⁸ He stopped the chariot, and they went down into the water and Philip baptized him. ³⁹ And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, and the eunuch never saw him again, but went on his way rejoicing. ⁴⁰ Meanwhile, Philip found himself at Azotus! He preached the Good News there and in every city along the way, as he traveled to Caesarea.