The Valley of Dry Bones

37 The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.^{(A) 2} He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. ³ He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.”^{(B) 4} Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. ⁵ Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath^[a] to enter you, and you shall live.^{(C) 6} I will lay sinews on you and will cause flesh to come upon you and cover you with skin and put breath^[b] in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”^(D)

⁷ So I prophesied as I had been commanded, and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. ⁸ I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them, but there was no breath in them. ⁹ Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath:^[c] Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath,^[d] and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.”^{(E) 10} I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.^(F)

¹¹ Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’^{(G) 12} Therefore prophesy and say to them: Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves and bring you up from your graves, O my people, and I will bring you back to the land of Israel.^{(H) 13} And you shall know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and bring you up from your graves, O my people.^{(I) 14} I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.”^(J)

Peter Speaks in Solomon’s Portico

¹¹ While he clung to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the portico called Solomon’s Portico, utterly astonished.^{(A) 12} When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, “Fellow Israelites,^[a] why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? ¹³ The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob,^[b] the God of our ancestors, has glorified his servant^[c] Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him.^{(B) 14} But you rejected the holy and righteous^[d] one and asked to have a murderer given to you,^{(C) 15} and you killed the author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses.^{(D) 16} And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus^[e] has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.

¹⁷ “And now, brothers and sisters, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers.^{(E) 18} In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, that his Messiah^[f] would suffer.^{(F) 19} Repent, therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, ²⁰ so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord and that he may send the Messiah^[g] appointed for you, that is, Jesus, ²¹ who must remain in heaven until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets.^{(G) 22} Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you from your own people a prophet like me. You must listen to whatever he tells you.^{(H) 23} And it will be that everyone who does not listen to that prophet will be utterly rooted out of the people.’ ²⁴ And all the prophets, as many as have spoken, from Samuel and those after him, also predicted these days. ²⁵ You are the descendants of the prophets and of the covenant that God gave to your ancestors, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your descendants all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’^{(I) 26} When God raised up his servant,^[h] he sent him first to you, to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways.”^(J)

¹² “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.^{(A) 13} No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.^{(B) 14} You are my friends if you do what I command you.^{(C) 15} I do not call you servants^[a] any longer, because the servant^[b] does not know what the master is doing, but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. ¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.^{(D) 17} I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

The World’s Hatred

¹⁸ “If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you.^{(E) 19} If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. ²⁰ Remember the word that I said to you, ‘Slaves are not greater than their master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also.^{(F) 21} But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.^{(G) 22} If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.^{(H) 23} Whoever hates me hates my Father also.^{(I) 24} If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not have sin. But now they have seen and hated both me and my Father.^{(J) 25} It was to fulfill the word that is written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.’^(K)

²⁶ “When the Advocate^[c] comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf.^{(L) 27} You also are to testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.^(M)