Acts 13:16–25

¹⁶Paul stood up, raised his hand, and said, “You Israelites and you who worship God, please listen! ¹⁷The God of the Israelites chose our ancestors. He made the people great during the time they lived in Egypt, and he brought them out of that country with great power. ¹⁸And he was patient with them ⁿ for forty years in the desert. ¹⁹God destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan and gave the land to his people. ²⁰All this happened in about four hundred fifty years.

“After this, God gave them judges until the time of Samuel the prophet. ²¹Then the people asked for a king, so God gave them Saul son of Kish. Saul was from the tribe of Benjamin and was king for forty years. ²²After God took him away, God made David their king. God said about him: ‘I have found in David son of Jesse the kind of man I want. He will do all I want him to do.’ ²³So God has brought Jesus, one of David’s descendants, to Israel to be its Savior, as he promised. ²⁴Before Jesus came, John ⁿ preached to all the people of Israel about a baptism of changed hearts and lives. ²⁵When he was finishing his work, he said, ‘Who do you think I am? I am not the Christ. He is coming later, and I am not worthy to untie his sandals.’