New Testament in a Year

The Holy Spirit comes

2 Then the day of the Pentecost festival arrived. All the believers were meeting together in one place.^{[a] 2} Suddenly, as they were sitting together, they heard a noise. The noise came from the sky and it filled the whole house. It was like the sound of a strong wind. ³ Then they saw something that looked like many small fires. The separate fires moved and went to sit on each person there. ⁴ All the believers became full with the Holy Spirit. They began to speak in languages that they had not learned. They spoke whatever language the Holy Spirit helped them to speak.

⁵ At that time, Jews who came from many different countries in the world were staying in Jerusalem. They were Jews who carefully obeyed God's Law. ⁶ When these Jews heard the noise, a large crowd of them came together in that place. As the believers spoke, each person in the crowd could hear the message in their own language. This confused them. ⁷ They were very surprised and they said to each other, ‘These men who are speaking our languages are all from Galilee. ⁸ But each of us can hear them speak in the language of our own home country. How can this happen? ⁹ Some of us are from Parthia, Media and Elam. Some of us live in Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia. Some of us are from Pontus and Asia. ¹⁰ Some of us are from Phrygia and Pamphylia. Some of us are from Egypt. Some of us are from the country of Libya, near the town of Cyrene. Some of us have come from Rome to visit Jerusalem. ¹¹ Some of us were born as Jews. Others of us are Gentiles who now obey God as the Jews do. Some of us are from Crete and some of us are from Arabia. But we all hear these people speaking in our own languages. They are speaking about all the great things that God has done.’

¹² All the people were very surprised. They did not understand what was happening. ‘What does all this mean?’ they asked each other. ¹³ But some other people laughed at the disciples. They said, ‘These people have drunk too much wine!’

Peter speaks to the crowd

¹⁴ Peter was there with the other 11 apostles and he stood up with them. He began to speak to the crowd with a loud voice. He said, ‘You people who are Jews like us, listen carefully to me. All of you who live here in Jerusalem, you also listen to me. I will explain to you everything that is happening. ¹⁵ Some of you think that my friends here are drunk. But they are not drunk, because it is only nine o'clock in the morning.^{[b] 16} No, something different is happening here. Long ago, the prophet Joel spoke God's message about all this. This is what he said:^[c]