Luke 12:12

¹⁵for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to withstand or to contradict.

²⁰For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.

⁸Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “You rulers of the people and elders of Israel,

¹¹The LORD said to him, “Who made man’s mouth? Or who makes one mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Isn’t it I, the LORD?

¹⁰They weren’t able to withstand the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke.

⁵⁵But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,

²He said, “Brothers and fathers, listen. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, ³and said to him, ‘Get out of your land and away from your relatives, and come into a land which I will show you.’⁴Then he came out of the land of the Chaldaeans and lived in Haran. From there, when his father was dead, God moved him into this land where you are now living. ⁵He gave him no inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on. He promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his offspring after him, when he still had no child. ⁶God spoke in this way: that his offspring would live as aliens in a strange land, and that they would be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years. ⁷‘I will judge the nation to which they will be in bondage,’ said God, ‘and after that they will come out and serve me in this place.’⁸He gave him the covenant of circumcision. So Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day. Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.

⁹“The patriarchs, moved with jealousy against Joseph, sold him into Egypt. God was with him ¹⁰and delivered him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt. He made him governor over Egypt and all his house. ¹¹Now a famine came over all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction. Our fathers found no food. ¹²But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers the first time. ¹³On the second time Joseph was made known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family was revealed to Pharaoh. ¹⁴Joseph sent and summoned Jacob his father and all his relatives, seventy-five souls. ¹⁵Jacob went down into Egypt and he died, himself and our fathers; ¹⁶and they were brought back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham bought for a price in silver from the children of Hamor of Shechem.

¹⁷“But as the time of the promise came close which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt, ¹⁸until there arose a different king who didn’t know Joseph. ¹⁹The same took advantage of our race and mistreated our fathers, and forced them to abandon their babies, so that they wouldn’t stay alive. ²⁰At that time Moses was born, and was exceedingly handsome to God. He was nourished three months in his father’s house. ²¹When he was abandoned, Pharaoh’s daughter took him up and reared him as her own son. ²²Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. He was mighty in his words and works. ²³But when he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers,^[+] the children of Israel. ²⁴Seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him and avenged him who was oppressed, striking the Egyptian. ²⁵He supposed that his brothers understood that God, by his hand, was giving them deliverance; but they didn’t understand.

²⁶“The day following, he appeared to them as they fought, and urged them to be at peace again, saying, ‘Sirs, you are brothers. Why do you wrong one another?’ ²⁷But he who did his neighbor wrong pushed him away, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? ²⁸Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’²⁹Moses fled at this saying, and became a stranger in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.

³⁰“When forty years were fulfilled, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush. ³¹When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight. As he came close to see, the voice of the Lord came to him, ³²‘I am the God of your fathers: the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’Moses trembled and dared not look. ³³The Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you stand is holy ground. ³⁴I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their groaning. I have come down to deliver them. Now come, I will send you into Egypt.’

³⁵“This Moses whom they refused, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’—God has sent him as both a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. ³⁶This man led them out, having worked wonders and signs in Egypt, in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years. ³⁷This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, ‘The Lord our God will raise up a prophet for you from among your brothers, like me.’^38[+] This is he who was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel that spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, who received living revelations to give to us, ³⁹to whom our fathers wouldn’t be obedient, but rejected him and turned back in their hearts to Egypt, ⁴⁰saying to Aaron, ‘Make us gods that will go before us, for as for this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what has become of him.’⁴¹They made a calf in those days, and brought a sacrifice to the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their hands. ⁴²But God turned away and gave them up to serve the army of the sky,^[+] as it is written in the book of the prophets, ‘Did you offer to me slain animals and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? ⁴³You took up the tabernacle of Moloch, the star of your god Rephan, the figures which you made to worship, so I will carry you awaybeyond Babylon.’

⁴⁴“Our fathers had the tabernacle of the testimony in the wilderness, even as he who spoke to Moses commanded him to make it according to the pattern that he had seen; ⁴⁵which also our fathers, in their turn, brought in with Joshua when they entered into the possession of the nations whom God drove out before the face of our fathers to the days of David, ⁴⁶who found favor in the sight of God, and asked to find a habitation for the God of Jacob. ⁴⁷But Solomon built him a house. ⁴⁸However, the Most High doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says, ⁴⁹‘heaven is my throne, and the earth a footstool for my feet. What kind of house will you build me?’ says the Lord. ‘Or what is the place of my rest? ⁵⁰Didn’t my hand make all these things?’

⁵¹“You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit! As your fathers did, so you do. ⁵²Which of the prophets didn’t your fathers persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, of whom you have now become betrayers and murderers. ⁵³You received the law as it was ordained by angels, and didn’t keep it!”

¹Agrippa said to Paul, “You may speak for yourself.” Then Paul stretched out his hand, and made his defense.

²“I think myself happy, King Agrippa, that I am to make my defense before you today concerning all the things that I am accused by the Jews, ³especially because you are expert in all customs and questions which are among the Jews. Therefore I beg you to hear me patiently.

⁴“Indeed, all the Jews know my way of life from my youth up, which was from the beginning among my own nation and at Jerusalem; ⁵having known me from the first, if they are willing to testify, that after the strictest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee. ⁶Now I stand here to be judged for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers, ⁷which our twelve tribes, earnestly serving night and day, hope to attain. Concerning this hope I am accused by the Jews, King Agrippa! ⁸Why is it judged incredible with you if God does raise the dead?

⁹“I myself most certainly thought that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. ¹⁰I also did this in Jerusalem. I both shut up many of the saints in prisons, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death I gave my vote against them. ¹¹Punishing them often in all the synagogues, I tried to make them blaspheme. Being exceedingly enraged against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities.

¹²“Whereupon as I traveled to Damascus with the authority and commission from the chief priests, ¹³at noon, O king, I saw on the way a light from the sky, brighter than the sun, shining around me and those who traveled with me. ¹⁴When we had all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’

¹⁵“I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ “He said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.

¹⁶But arise, and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose: to appoint you a servant and a witness both of the things which you have seen and of the things which I will reveal to you; ¹⁷delivering you from the people and from the Gentiles, to whom I send you, ¹⁸to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive remission of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

¹⁹“Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, ²⁰but declared first to them of Damascus, at Jerusalem, and throughout all the country of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, doing works worthy of repentance. ²¹For this reason the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me. ²²Having therefore obtained the help that is from God, I stand to this day testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would happen, ²³how the Christ must suffer, and how, by the resurrection of the dead, he would be first to proclaim light both to these people and to the Gentiles.”

²⁴As he thus made his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, “Paul, you are crazy! Your great learning is driving you insane!”

²⁵But he said, “I am not crazy, most excellent Festus, but boldly declare words of truth and reasonableness. ²⁶For the king knows of these things, to whom also I speak freely. For I am persuaded that none of these things is hidden from him, for this has not been done in a corner. ²⁷King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe.”

²⁸Agrippa said to Paul, “With a little persuasion are you trying to make me a Christian?”

²⁹Paul said, “I pray to God, that whether with little or with much, not only you, but also all that hear me today, might become such as I am, except for these bonds.”

³⁰The king rose up with the governor and Bernice, and those who sat with them. ³¹When they had withdrawn, they spoke to one another, saying, “This man does nothing worthy of death or of bonds.” ³²Agrippa said to Festus, “This man might have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar.”