Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

¹² Peter saw all the people who had come together. So he said to them, ‘People of Israel, you should not be so surprised about what you have seen. You should not look at us as if we ourselves are powerful. It is not because we obey God that we could cause this man to walk again. ¹³ It happened because of Jesus, who was the special servant of God. That is the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and our other ancestors who lived long ago.^[a] God has raised his servant Jesus up to a place of honour.

You helped the rulers to take hold of Jesus. The Roman ruler Pilate had decided to let Jesus go free. But you turned against Jesus. ¹⁴ Jesus was God's Holy One who always did what was right. But you did not accept him. You told Pilate to let another man go free instead of Jesus. That man was in prison because he had killed people. ¹⁵ But Jesus is the person who leads people to true life. When you refused him, it meant that you killed him. But God made him alive again and raised him up from death. We ourselves saw him alive after he had died and we are telling you about it.

¹⁶ It is the power of Jesus that has made this man completely well again. We believe in him. We know that he has authority. You know this man. You saw that he had weak legs. Jesus has caused this man's legs to become strong. You can all see for yourselves what has happened. Yes, he is now well because we havetrusted Jesus and his power.

¹⁷ Friends, when you did all this to Jesus, you did not really know what you were doing. Your leaders also did not understand. ¹⁸ Jesus was God's Messiah. A long time ago, many of God's prophets spoke about him. They spoke God's message about what would happen to the Messiah. They said that he would suffer. God has now caused these things to happen. ¹⁹ So you must stop doing wrong things. Change how you live and turn to God. Then God will forgive you for all the wrong things that you have done.

This is a song that David wrote.

Tell the music leader to use stringed instruments.

An evening song

We are God's children

3 Think about how much God the Father loves us. He calls us his children! God loves us so much that we really have become his children. The people who belong to this world do not understand who God is. Because of that, they do not understand who we are. ² My friends, we are already children of God. We do not yet know clearly what we will become. But we do know this: when Christ returns to this world, we will become like him. We will be like him because we will see him as he really is. ³ Christ is completely good. So all of us who hope to see him then must keep ourselves clean from sin.

⁴ If a person continues to do wrong things, he is choosing not to obey God's rules. Sin is when we do not obey God's rules. ⁵ You know that Jesus came into the world so that he might take away our sins. He himself is completely clean from sin. ⁶ Anyone who lives together with Christ does not continue to do wrong things. If anyone continues to do wrong things, that person has not understood who Christ is. He does not know Christ.

⁷ My little children, do not let anyone deceive you about sin. It is people who live in a good way that God accepts as right. In the same way, Jesus did only what is good and right.

Jesus appears to the group

³⁶ While they were still speaking like that, Jesus himself stood among them. He said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’

³⁷ But the whole group was very surprised and afraid. They thought that they were seeing a spirit. ³⁸ Jesus said to them, ‘You should not be so afraid. You seem to have trouble in your minds about what you are seeing. ³⁹ Now look at my hands and my feet. It is really me! Touch me. Then you will know that I am not a spirit. A spirit does not have a body with skin and bones. You can see that I have a real body.’

⁴⁰ When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. ⁴¹ This was such good news, they were very happy. But they could still not really believe it. So he asked them, ‘Do you have anything that I could eat?’ ⁴² They gave him a piece of fish that they had cooked. ⁴³ While they were watching, he took it and he ate it.

⁴⁴ Then he said to them, ‘I told you about these things while I was still with you. Everything that God's servants wrote about me in the Bible had to happen. Moses wrote about me in his book of God's Law. The prophets also wrote about me. The book called Psalms also tells about me. And now it has become true.’

⁴⁵ Then he helped them to understand God's message in the Bible. ⁴⁶ He told them, ‘This is what it says there: The Messiah had to die. Then, after three days, he had to rise up and become alive again. ⁴⁷ People in every country of the world must hear God's message. They must stop doing wrong things and change how they live. When they do this, God will forgive them. He will forgive all the bad things that they have done. People need to tell this message about the Messiah in Jerusalem first, then tell people in other countries. ⁴⁸ You are the people who have seen what has happened here. You must tell other people about it.