1 Among the people in the congregation at Antioch there were ◄prophets/those who spoke messages from God► and those who taught people about Jesus. They were Barnabas; Simeon, who was also called Niger/Blackman; Lucius, from Cyrene city; Manaen, who had grown up with King Herod Antipas; and Saul. 2 While they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said to them, “Appoint Barnabas and Saul to serve me and to go and do the work that I have chosen them to do!” 3 So they continued ◄to fast/to abstain from eating food► and pray. Then having put their hands on Barnabas and Saul and praying that God would help them, they sent them off to do what the Holy Spirit had commanded.

4 Barnabas and Saul, guided by the Holy Spirit, went down from Antioch to Seleucia port. From there they went by ship to Salamis port on Cyprus Island. 5 While they were in Salamis, they went to the Jewish meeting places. There they proclaimed the message from God about Jesus. John Mark went with them and was helping them.

6  The three of them went across the entire island to Paphos city. There they met a magician whose name was Bar-Jesus. He was a Jew who falsely claimed ◄to be a prophet/to speak messages from God►. 7 He often accompanied the governor of the island, Sergius Paulus, who was an intelligent man. The governor sent someone to ask Barnabas and Saul to come to him, because he wanted to hear God’s message. So Barnabas and Saul came and told him about Jesus. 8 However, the magician, whose name was Elymas in the Greek language, was opposing them. He repeatedly tried to persuade the governor not to believe in Jesus. 9 Then Saul, who now called himself Paul, empowered by the Holy Spirit, looked intently at the magician and said, 10 “You (sg) are serving the devil and you oppose everything that is good! You are always lying to people and doing other evil things to them. ◄You must stop saying that the truth about the Lord God is a lot of lies!/When will you stop changing what is true about the Lord God and saying what is not true about him?► [RHQ] 11 Right now the Lord God [MTY] is going to punish you! You will become blind and not even be able to see light for some time.” At once he became blind, as though he was in a dark mist, and he groped about, searching for someone to hold him by the hand and lead him. 12 When the governor saw what had happened to Elymas, he believed in the Lord Jesus. He was amazed by what Paul and Barnabas were teaching about the Lord Jesus.

13  After that, Paul and the two men with him went by ship from Paphos to Perga port in Pamphylia province. At Perga John Mark left them and returned to his home in Jerusalem. 14 Then Paul and Barnabas traveled by land from Perga, and arrived in Antioch city near Pisidia district in Galatia province. ◄On the Sabbath/On the Jewish rest day► they entered the synagogue/the Jewish meeting place and sat down. 15  Someone read aloud from what Moses had written. Then someone read from what the other prophets had written [MTY]. Then the leaders of the Jewish meeting place gave someone this note to take to Paul and Barnabas: “Fellow Jews, if one of you wants to speak to the people here to encourage them, please speak to us(exc) now.”

16 So Paul stood up and motioned with his right hand so that the people would listen to him. Then he said, “Fellow Israelis and you non-Jewish people who also worship God, please listen to me! 17 God, whom we (inc) Israelis worship, chose our ancestors to be his people, and he caused them to become very numerous while they were foreigners living in Egypt. Then after many years, God helped them [MTY] powerfully and led them out of there. 18  Even though they repeatedly disobeyed him, he cared for them for about 40 years while they were in the desert. 19 He enabled the Israelis to conquer seven tribal groups who were then living in Canaan region, and he gave their land to us Israelis for us to possess. 20  Our ancestors began to possess Canaan about 450 years after their ancestors had arrived in Egypt.”

“After that, God appointed leaders to rule the Israeli people. Those leaders continued to rule our people until the time when the prophet Samuel ruled them. 21 Then, while Samuel was still their leader, the people demanded that he appoint a king to rule them. So God appointed Saul, the son of Kish, from the tribe of Benjamin, to be their king. He ruled them for 40 years. 22 After God had rejected Saul from being king, he appointed David to be their king. God said about him, ‘I have observed that David, son of Jesse, is exactly the kind of man that I desire [IDM]. He will do everything that I want him to do.’ ”

23 “From among David’s descendants, God brought one of them, Jesus, to us Israeli people to save us, just like he had told David and our other ancestors that he would do. 24 Before Jesus began his work, John the Baptizer preached to all of our Israeli people who came to him. He told them that they should turn away from their sinful behavior and ask God to forgive them. Then he would baptize them. 25 When John was about to finish the work that God gave him to do, he frequently said to the people, ‘Do you think [RHQ] that I am the Messiah whom God promised to send? No, I am not. But listen! The Messiah will soon come. He is so much greater than I am that I am not even important enough to be his slave [MET].’ ”

26 “Fellow Israelis, you who are descendants of Abraham, and you non-Jewish people who also worship God, please listen! It is to all of us that God has sent the message about how he saves people. 27 The people who were living in Jerusalem and their rulers did not realize that this man Jesus was the one whom God had sent to save them. Although messages from [MTY] the prophets have been read aloud {someone has read aloud messages from [MTY] the prophets} every ◄Sabbath/Jewish day of rest►, they did not understand what the prophets wrote about the Messiah. So the Jewish leaders condemned Jesus to die, which was just like the prophets predicted. 28  Many people accused Jesus of doing wicked things, but they could not prove that he had done anything for which he deserved to die. They insistently asked Pilate the governor to command that Jesus be executed {to command soldiers to execute Jesus}. So Pilate did what they asked him to do. 29 They did to Jesus all the things that the prophets long ago had written that people would do to him. They killed Jesus by nailing him to a cross. Then his body was taken {some people took his body} down from the cross and placed it in a tomb. 30 However, God ◄raised him from the dead/caused him to live again after he had died► 31 and for many days he repeatedly appeared to his followers who had come along with him from Galilee province to Jerusalem. Those who saw him are telling the Jewish people about him now.”

32 “Right now we two are proclaiming to you this good message. We want to tell you that God has fulfilled what he promised to our Jewish ancestors! 33 He has now done that for us (inc) who are their descendants, and also for you who are not Jews, by causing Jesus to live again. That is just like what David wrote in the second Psalm that God said when he was sending his Son,

34  God has ◄raised the Messiah from the dead/caused the Messiah to live again after he had died► and will never let him die again. Concerning that, God said to our Jewish ancestors, ‘I will surely help you, as I promised David that I would do.’ 35 So in writing another Psalm, David said this to God about the Messiah: ‘Because I am devoted to you and always obey you, when I die you (sg) will not let my body decay.’ 36 While David was living, he did what God wanted him to do. And when he died [EUP], his body was buried, as his ancestors’ bodies had been buried, and his body decayed. So he could not have been speaking about himself in this Psalm. 37  Instead, he was speaking about Jesus. Jesus also died, but God ◄raised him from the dead/caused him to live again►, and therefore his body did not decay.”

38-39 “Therefore, my fellow Israelis and other friends, it is important for you to know that we(exc) are declaring to you that God can forgive you for your sins as a result of what Jesus has done. Because of what Jesus has done, God considers that everyone who believes in Jesus is no longer guilty (OR, the record has been erased {God has erased the record}) concerning everything that they have done that displeased God. But when God does that for you, it is not as a result of your obeying the laws that Moses wrote. 40 Therefore be careful that God does not judge you [MTY], as one of the prophets said [MTY] that God would do! 41  The prophet wrote that God said,

42 After Paul finished speaking, while he and Barnabas were leaving the Jewish meeting place, many of the people there repeatedly requested that on the next ◄Sabbath/Jewish day of rest► the two of them should speak to them again about those things that Paul had just told them. 43 After they began to leave that meeting, many of them went along with Paul and Barnabas. They consisted of Jews and also of non-Jews who had accepted the things that the Jews believe. Paul and Barnabas continued talking to them, and were urging them to continue believing the message that God kindly forgives people’s sins because of what Jesus did.

44 On the next Jewish rest day, most of the people in Antioch came to the Jewish meeting place to hear Paul and Barnabas speak about the Lord Jesus. 45 But the leaders of [SYN] the Jews became extremely jealous, because they saw that large crowds of non-Jewish people were coming to hear Paul and Barnabas. So they began to contradict the things that Paul was saying and also to insult him. 46 Then, speaking very boldly, Paul and Barnabas said to those Jewish leaders, “We two had to speak the message from God about Jesus to you Jews first before we proclaim it to non-Jews, because God commanded us to do that. But you are rejecting God’s message. By doing that, you have shown that you are not worthy ◄to have eternal life/to live eternally with God►. Therefore, we are leaving you, and now we will go to the non-Jewish people to tell them the message from God. 47  We are doing that also because the Lord God has commanded us to do it. He said to us,

48 While the non-Jewish people were listening to those words, they began to rejoice, and they repeatedly said that the message about the Lord Jesus was wonderful. And all of the non-Jewish people whom God had chosen ◄to have eternal life/to live eternally with God► believed the message about the Lord Jesus. 49  At that time, many of the believers traveled around throughout that region. As they did that, they were proclaiming the message about the Lord Jesus [MTY].

50 However, some leaders of [SYN] the Jews incited the most important men in the city, and some important/influential women who had accepted what the Jews believe, to oppose Paul and Barnabas. So those non-Jewish people incited other people also to persecute Paul and Barnabas. As a result they expelled the two men from their region. 51 So, as the two apostles were leaving, they shook the dust from their feet to show those Jewish leaders that God had rejected them and would punish them. They left Antioch and went to Iconium city. 52 Meanwhile, the believers in Antioch continued to rejoice greatly, and they continued to be completely controlled by the Holy Spirit.