Acts 15:1-20 ▼

1 And certain having come down from Judea, were teaching the brothers, “If you are not circumcised after the custom of Moses, you are not able to be saved”;

2 there having been, therefore, not a little dissension and debate to Paul and Barnabas with them, they arranged for Paul and Barnabas, and certain others of them, to go up to the apostles and elders to Jerusalem about this question;

3 they indeed, then, having been sent forward by the assembly, were passing through Phoenicia and Samaria, declaring the conversion of the nations, and they were causing great joy to all the brothers.

4 And having come to Jerusalem, they were received by the assembly, and the apostles, and the elders; they also declared as many things as God did with them;

5 and there rose up certain of those of the sect of the Pharisees who believed, saying, “It is required to circumcise them, to command them also to keep the Law of Moses.”

6 And there were gathered together the apostles and the elders, to see about this matter,

7 and there having been much disputing, Peter having risen up said to them, “Men, brothers, you know that from former days God made choice among us, through my mouth, for the nations to hear the word of the good news, and to believe;

8 and the heart-knowing God bore them testimony, having given to them the Holy Spirit, even as also to us,

9 and also put no difference between us and them, having purified their hearts by faith;

10 now, therefore, why do you tempt God, to put a yoke on the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

11 But through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we believe to be saved, even as also they.”

12 And all the multitude kept silence and were listening to Barnabas and Paul expounding as many signs and wonders as God did among the nations through them;

13 and after they were silent, James answered, saying, “Men, brothers, listen to me:

14 Simeon expounded how at first God looked on [us] to take a people out of [the] nations for His Name,

15 and to this the words of the Prophets agree, as it has been written:

16 After these things I will return, || And I will rebuild the dwelling place of David that has fallen down, || And I will rebuild its ruins, || And will set it upright—

17 That the remnant of men may seek after the LORD, || And all the nations on whom My Name has been called, || Says the LORD, who is doing all these things.

18 Known from the ages to God are all His works.

19 For this reason I judge: not to trouble those who turn back to God from the nations,

20 but to write to them to abstain from the defilements of the idols, and the whoredom, and the strangled thing, and the blood;