Acts 3

A man couldn’t walk, but Peter got Jesus to make him better

1-3 There was a man that couldn’t walk. He was crippled all his life. Every day, somebody brought him to sit near one of the gates at God’s ceremony house. Everyone called that gate the beautiful gate. As people went in through that gate, the crippled man asked them for money.

One day, at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, Peter and John went to pray at God’s ceremony house. They were going in through that Beautiful Gate, and that crippled man saw them and asked them for money. 4 Peter and John looked straight at that man, and Peter said, “Look at us.”

5 So the man looked at them. He thought, “I reckon these 2 men will give me some money.”

6 But Peter said, “I haven’t got any money. But I have got something really good for you. Jesus Christ, the man from Nazareth, has the power to make you better, so I’m talking to you with his power, and I tell you, get up and walk.”

7 Then Peter held the man’s right hand and helped him to stand up. Straight away the man’s feet and ankles got strong. 8 He jumped up and started to walk around, and he went with Peter and John into the yard of the ceremony house. That man was walking, and jumping around, and he was telling everyone that God is really great and really good.

9 All the people that were there saw him walking, and they heard him saying that God is really great. 10 They knew he was the man that used to sit near the Beautiful Gate and ask them for money, and they were really surprised. They thought, “How did this happen to him?” 11 All the people there were really surprised, and they ran to Peter and John. They were at a place in God’s ceremony house called Solomon’s veranda. And the man kept holding on to Peter and John.

Peter told the people about Jesus

12 Peter saw all those people and said to them, “All you Israel people, why are you surprised like this? Why are you looking at us? Do you think that we are really powerful, and that we made this man walk? Do you think that we are so good that we can do that? No. We are not. 13-14 God made this man better, so that everyone will know that Jesus is really great. But you mob grabbed Jesus and gave him to the soldiers, for them to kill him. Pilate, the judge, wanted to let Jesus go free, but all you mob kept on shouting, ‘No, don’t let Jesus go. You have to kill him. You have to let another man go free instead, even though the other man is a murderer.’ Jesus was a properly good man that lived God’s way, but you said that he was not good.

But Jesus worked for God, and after they killed him, God made him come alive again, and God made him really powerful. This is the same God that our grand-fathers respected a long time ago. They were Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob.[~1~] 15 Yes, you killed Jesus, the one that gives life to people. But God made him alive again. And both of us saw him with our own eyes, he was really alive again.

16 Now you are looking at this man here, and you know he used to be crippled. But we believed that Jesus can make him better, so Jesus did make him better. You mob saw that with your own eyes.”

17 Peter kept on talking to them. He said, “My friends, I know that you and your leaders didn’t understand about Jesus. You mob didn’t know that he was the special man that God sent to us. 18 But a long time ago, God told his men to tell people about Jesus, and those men wrote those messages in God’s book. They all said that God was going to send his special man, the man that is called the Christ, and they said that people were going to hurt him and kill him. And now God has made all that happen.

19 So listen. You mob have to change the way you live, and you have to turn back to God, so that he will not blame you or do payback to you for the bad things you did. 20-21 Then God will make your spirits happy and strong. You see, God picked Jesus and sent him to you. He is the Christ, God’s special man. Jesus will stay in heaven until the right time comes for God to make everything new and right again. Then God will send Jesus to you again.

God told everyone about that a long time ago, and he got his men to write about it in his book. 22 One of those men was Moses. He wrote,

‘God picked me to tell you his messages, and just like that he will pick one of your people later on. That man will be God’s special man, and he will tell you God’s messages. You have to listen properly to everything he tells you. 23 If anyone will not listen to him, that person will not belong to God’s people, and that person will die.’[~2~]

24 Samuel was another of God’s men a long time ago. He also told people that all these things were going to happen. And all God’s other men that came later, they told people the same story. 25 God promised all these things to our grand-fathers that lived a long time ago, and he promised them to you too. A long time ago, God said to our grand-father Abraham,

‘I will use your family to do good things for all the nations in the world.’[~3~]

26 So, you see, first of all, God made Jesus alive again. After that, he sent him to do good things for you. Yes, God sent Jesus to help you Israel mob turn around and stop doing bad things, and live the right way.”

<- Acts 2 Acts 4 ->