Acts 15:7–21

⁷And much discussion having taken place, Peter, standing up, said to them, Brethren, ye know that from the earliest days God amongst you chose that the nations by my mouth should hear the word of the glad tidings and believe. ⁸And the heart-knowing God bore them witness, giving them the Holy Spirit as to us also, ⁹and put no difference between us and them, having purified their hearts by faith. ¹⁰Now therefore why tempt ye God, by putting a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? ¹¹But we believe that we shall be saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same manner as they also. ¹²And all the multitude kept silence and listened to Barnabas and Paul relating all the signs and wonders which God had wrought among the nations by them. ¹³And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Brethren, listen to me: ¹⁴Simon has related how God first visited to take out of the nations a people for his name. ¹⁵And with this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written: ¹⁶After these things I will return, and will rebuild the tabernacle of David which is fallen, and will rebuild its ruins, and will set it up, ¹⁷so that the residue of men may seek out the Lord, and all the nations on whom my name is invoked, saith the Lord, who does these things ¹⁸known from eternity. ¹⁹Wherefore I judge, not to trouble those who from the nations turn to God; ²⁰but to write to them to abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from what is strangled, and from blood. ²¹For Moses, from generations of old, has in every city those who preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath.