Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

¹¹ My brothers, I want you to know this. The good news which I told you is not man's good news.

¹² No man told it to me. No man taught it to me. But it was Jesus Christ who showed it to me.

¹³ You have heard how I lived while I was still under the law of the Jews. I troubled the church of God very much. And I even tried to stop the church people altogether.

¹⁴ I knew more about the law of the Jews than many of my own age among my people. I wanted much more than they did to obey the laws which our fathers passed down to us, even the ones that were not written.

¹⁵ But God chose me to be an apostle before I was born. And he called me by his love.

¹⁶ God wanted to show his Son to me so that I might tell people who are not Jews about him. I did not go and ask any other person about the good news.

¹⁷ I did not go to Jerusalem to the men who were apostles before I was. But I went away into the country of Arabia. Then afterwards, I came back to the city of Damascus.

¹⁸ Three years later, I went to Jerusalem to visit Peter, and stayed with him fifteen days.

¹⁹ James, the brother of the Lord, was the only other apostle I saw. I did not see any of the other apostles.

²⁰ God knows that what I am writing to you is not a lie.

²¹ After I had been at Jerusalem, I went to the countries of Syria and Cilicia.

²² At that time the churches of Christ in Judea did not know me. They had never seen me.

²³ They only heard people say, `This is the man who used to trouble us and he is now telling others to believe what he once tried to stop.'

²⁴ And they praised God for what had happened to me.

¹¹ Soon after that, Jesus went to the town of Nain. His disciples and many other people went with him.

¹² He came near the gate of the town. There he met people carrying out a man who had died. He was the only son of his mother. And her husband was dead too. Many people from the city were with her.

¹³ The Lord saw her. He shared in her sorrows and troubles. He said to her, `Do not cry.'

¹⁴ Jesus came and touched the thing on which the body lay. The men who were carrying it stopped walking. Jesus said, `Young man, I tell you, get up!'

¹⁵ The dead man sat up and began to talk. Jesus gave him to his mother.

¹⁶ Everyone was very much surprised. They praised God. They said, `A great prophet of God has come to us. God has remembered his people.'

¹⁷ The people all over Judea and all the country around it heard what Jesus had done.