Acts 1

₁Theophilus, in my first book I wrote about all the things that Jesus did and what He told people to do while He was here on earth, ₂before He went to heaven. But before God took Jesus to heaven, Jesus chose 12 men to be his apostles. Jesus and the Holy_Spirit told them what to do when He had gone away. ₃After Jesus had suffered and died, He started to live again and He came to the apostles and showed them that He was alive. He appeared to them a lot of times in 40 days and He told them about God who is King over everyone. ₄Jesus stayed with the apostles and He told them not to go away from Jerusalem. He said they must wait until the Father had given them the Holy_Spirit because that was what the Father had promised them. Jesus had told them this and ₅He said: ‘John the Baptist baptised you with water, but God will baptise you with the Holy_Spirit. You will not wait for a long time.’

₆While the apostles were with Jesus before He died, they asked Him: ‘Lord, will You make Israel a strong nation again with their own king?’

₇Jesus told them: ‘My Father will do the things that He wants to do. Only He knows when He will do them. You can not know when they will happen. ₈But the Holy_Spirit will come into you and He will give you power. Then you will tell all the people about Me in Jerusalem and in all the places in Judea and in Samaria and all the places in the world.’

₉After Jesus had said these things, God took Him to heaven while the apostles were watching. Jesus went into a cloud and they did not see Him anymore. ₁₀Jesus went away and the apostles were looking up at the sky, when they saw 2 men with white clothes standing next to them. ₁₁The 2 men asked them: ‘Men of Galilee, why do you look at the sky? God has taken Jesus to heaven, but this Jesus will come again in the same way as you have seen Him go into heaven.’

₁₂The apostles walked from the Mount_of_Olives to Jerusalem. It was 800 metres, as far as a person was allowed to walk on the Sabbath day. ₁₃When they came into Jerusalem, they went up to the room in the house where they lived. The names of those apostles were: Peter, John and James, Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alpheus, Simon the patriot and Judas the son of James. ₁₄The apostles always prayed together with a few women and with Mary, the mother of Jesus, and his brothers were also with them. ₁₅One day there were about 120 believers together and Peter got up and said to them:

₁₆‘Friends, long ago the Holy_Spirit told King David to write about Judas in the Old_Testament and that is what has happened now. Judas went to the Jewish_leaders and he told them how they could catch Jesus. ₁₇Judas was one of us and he worked with us, ₁₈but then he took the money that the Jewish_leaders gave him and he bought a field. A few days later he fell on his face and his stomach burst open and his insides came out. ₁₉When they told the people of Jerusalem what had happened, they said the name of that field in their own language would be Akeldama. It means “Field of blood”.

₂₀We read these words in the book of Psalms:

₂₁Now we must get another man in the place of Judas to help us tell the people about Jesus. He must be someone who was with us all the time when Jesus did his work on earth, ₂₂from the time when John baptised Jesus until He went to heaven. He must be a witness with us to the people that Jesus was dead but that He rose and lives again.’

₂₃The believers gave them the names of 2 men, Joseph and Matthias. Joseph also had 2 other names, Barsabbas and Justus. ₂₄Then they prayed and said: ‘Lord, You know what every person thinks. Please show us whom You have chosen ₂₅to serve as an apostle in the place of Judas who left his work and is not an apostle anymore.’

₂₆They drew_lots and God showed them that He wanted Matthias to be an apostle with the other 11 apostles.