Acts
12
- It was about this time that King Herod arrested
some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them.
- He had James, the brother of John, put to
death with the sword.
- When he saw that this pleased the Jews,
he proceeded to seize Peter also. This happened during the Feast of Unleavened
Bread.
- After arresting him, he put him in prison,
handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod
intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover.
- So Peter was kept in prison, but the church
was earnestly praying to God for him.
- The night before Herod was to bring him
to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains,
and sentries stood guard at the entrance.
- Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and
a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. "Quick,
get up!" he said, and the chains fell off Peter's wrists.
- Then the angel said to him, "Put on
your clothes and sandals." And Peter did so. "Wrap your cloak around
you and follow me," the angel told him.
- Peter followed him out of the prison, but
he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening; he thought
he was seeing a vision.
- They passed the first and second guards
and came to the iron gate leading to the city. It opened for them by itself,
and they went through it. When they had walked the length of one street, suddenly
the angel left him.
- Then Peter came to himself and said, "Now
I know without a doubt that the Lord sent his angel and rescued me from Herod's
clutches and from everything the Jewish people were anticipating."
- When this had dawned on him, he went to
the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people
had gathered and were praying.
- Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and
a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer the door.
- When she recognized Peter's voice, she was
so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, "Peter is
at the door !"
- "You're out of your mind," they
told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, "It must
be his angel."
- But Peter kept on knocking, and when they
opened the door and saw him, they were astonished.
- Peter motioned with his hand for them to
be quiet and described how the Lord had brought him out of prison. "Tell
James and the brothers about this," he said, and then he left for another
place.
- In the morning, there was no small commotion
among the soldiers as to what had become of Peter.
- After Herod had a thorough search made for
him and did not find him, he cross-examined the guards and ordered that they
be executed. Then Herod went from Judea to Caesarea and stayed there a while.
- He had been quarreling with the people of
Tyre and Sidon; they now joined together and sought an audience with him.
Having secured the support of Blastus, a trusted personal servant of the king,
they asked for peace, because they depended on the king's country for their
food supply.
- On the appointed day Herod, wearing his
royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people.
- They shouted, "This is the voice of
a god, not of a man."
- Immediately, because Herod did not give
praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms
and died.
- But the word of God continued to increase
and spread.
- When Barnabas and Saul had finished their
mission, they returned from Jerusalem, taking with them John, also called
Mark.
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