Acts 15:7–21

⁷And when there had been much questioning, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Brethren, ye know that a good while ago God made choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel, and believe. ⁸And God, who knoweth the heart, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Spirit, even as he did unto us; ⁹and he made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. ¹⁰Now therefore why make ye trial of God, that ye should put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? ¹¹But we believe that we shall be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in like manner as they.

¹²And all the multitude kept silence; and they hearkened unto Barnabas and Paul rehearsing what signs and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles through them. ¹³And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Brethren, hearken unto me: ¹⁴Symeon hath rehearsed how first God visited the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name. ¹⁵And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written,

¹⁶After these things I will return,

And I will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen;

And I will build again the ruins thereof,

And I will set it up:

¹⁷That the residue of men may seek after the Lord,

And all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called,

¹⁸Saith the Lord, who maketh these things known from of old.

¹⁹Wherefore my judgment is, that we trouble not them that from among the Gentiles turn to God; ²⁰but that we write unto them, that they abstain from the pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from what is strangled, and from blood. ²¹For Moses from generations of old hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath.