God’s Covenant with Abram

15 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”^{(A) 2} But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”^{[a](B) 3} And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.”^{(C) 4} But the word of the Lord came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your very own issue shall be your heir.”^{(D) 5} He brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”^{(E) 6} And he believed the Lord, and the Lord^[b] reckoned it to him as righteousness.

¹⁶ So Paul stood up and with a gesture began to speak:

“Fellow Israelites^[a] and others who fear God, listen. ¹⁷ The God of this people Israel chose our ancestors and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with uplifted arm he led them out of it.^{(A) 18} For about forty years he put up with^[b] them in the wilderness.^{(B) 19} After he had destroyed seven peoples in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land as an inheritance^{(C) 20} for about four hundred fifty years. After that he gave them judges until the time of the prophet Samuel.^{(D) 21} Then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, who reigned for forty years.^{(E) 22} When he had removed him, he made David their king. In his testimony about him he said, ‘I have found David, son of Jesse, to be a man after my heart, who will carry out all my wishes.’^{(F) 23} Of this man’s posterity God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as he promised;^{(G) 24} before his coming John had already proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.^{(H) 25} And as John was finishing his work, he said, ‘What do you suppose that I am? I am not he. No, but one is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the strap of the sandals^[c] on his feet.’^(I)

The Rejection of Jesus at Nazareth

¹⁶ When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read,^{(A) 17} and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

²⁰ And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.^{(D) 21} Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” ²² All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is this not Joseph’s son?”^{(E) 23} He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’ ”^{(F) 24} And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown.^{(G) 25} But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months and there was a severe famine over all the land,^{(H) 26} yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. ²⁷ There were also many with a skin disease in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”^(I)