Book of Common Prayer
18 So they called them in and gave them orders not to speak at all, or to teach, in the name of Jesus.
19 But Peter and John gave them this reply.
“You judge,” they said, “whether it’s right before God to listen to you rather than to God! 20 As far as we’re concerned, we can’t stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.”
21 Then they threatened them some more, and let them go. They couldn’t find any way to punish them because of the people, since everyone was glorifying God for what had happened. 22 After all, the man to whom this sign of healing had happened was over forty years old.
Look upon their threats
23 When they had been released, they went back to their own people, and told them everything that the chief priests and the elders had said. 24 When they heard it, they all together lifted up their voices to God.
“Sovereign Master,” they said, “you made heaven and earth, and the sea, and everything in them. 25 And you said through the holy spirit, by the mouth of our ancestor David, your servant,
Why did the nations fly into a rage,
and why did the peoples think empty thoughts?
26 The kings of the earth arose
and the rulers gathered themselves together
against the Lord and against his anointed Messiah.
27 “It’s true: Herod and Pontius Pilate, together with the nations and the peoples of Israel, gathered themselves together in this very city against your holy child Jesus, the one you anointed, 28 to do whatever your hand and your plan had foreordained to take place. 29 So now, Master, look on their threats; and grant that we, your servants, may speak your word with all boldness, 30 while you stretch out your hand for healing, so that signs and wonders may come about through the name of your holy child Jesus.”
31 When they had prayed, the place where they were gathered was shaken. They were all filled with the holy spirit, and they boldly spoke the word of God.
Blasphemy!
31 So the Judaeans once more picked up stones to stone him.
32 “I’ve shown you many fine deeds from the father,” Jesus replied to them. “Which of these deeds are you stoning me for?”
33 “We’re not stoning you for good deeds,” replied the Judaeans, “but because of blasphemy! Here you are, a mere man, and you’re making yourself into God!”
34 “It’s written in your law, isn’t it,” replied Jesus to them, “ ‘I said, you are gods?’ 35 Well, if the law calls people ‘gods,’ people to whom God’s word came (and you can’t set the Bible aside), 36 how can you accuse someone of blasphemy when the father has placed him apart and sent him into the world, and he says, ‘I am the son of God’?
37 “If I’m not doing the works of my father, don’t believe me. 38 But if I am doing them, well—even if you don’t believe me, believe the works! That way you will know and grasp that the father is in me, and I am in the father.”
39 So again they tried to arrest him. But Jesus managed to get away from them.
40 He went off once more across the Jordan, to the place where John had been baptizing at the beginning, and he stayed there. 41 Several people came to him.
“John never did any signs,” they said, “but everything that John said about this man was true.”
42 And many believed in him there.
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.