²⁶ And here he is, speaking openly, but they say nothing to him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Messiah?^[a]

⁴⁸ Has any one of the authorities or of the Pharisees believed in him?^(A)

⁷ for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.^(A)

⁸ Do not be ashamed, then, of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel, in the power of God,^(B)

¹⁴ and most of the brothers and sisters, having been made confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, dare to speak the word^[a] with greater boldness and without fear.

¹⁹ Pray also for me, so that when I speak a message may be given to me to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel,^{[a](A) 20} for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it boldly, as I must speak.^(B)

¹³ Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and ordinary men, they were amazed and recognized them as companions of Jesus.^(A)

⁴² Nevertheless many, even of the authorities, believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they did not confess it, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue,^(A)

⁴⁷ So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council and said, “What are we to do? This man is performing many signs.^{(A) 48} If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place^[a] and our nation.” ⁴⁹ But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all!^{(B) 50} You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.”^{(C) 51} He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation, ⁵² and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God. ⁵³ So from that day on they planned to put him to death.^(D)

²² His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus^[a] to be the Messiah^[b] would be put out of the synagogue.^(A)

³⁰ But the Pharisees and the experts in the law, not having been baptized by him, rejected God’s purpose for themselves.)^(A)