Acts 1:12-26

12Then the apostles left the Mount of Olives. They returned to Jerusalem. This was a walk of about 1 kilometre.

13When the apostles arrived back in Jerusalem, they went to their room. The room where they were staying was upstairs. Those apostles were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas; Bartholomew and Matthew; also James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas, the son of James.

14All these apostles often met together to pray. Mary who was Jesus' mother, other women and Jesus' brothers also met with them.

15One day, about 120 people who believed in Jesus were meeting together. Peter stood up and he said to them,

16‘My friends, long ago, the Holy Spirit gave King David a message to speak from God. He spoke about the things that Judas would do. Judas was the one who showed the soldiers how to catch Jesus. These things had to happen in the way that David wrote in the Bible long ago.

17Judas belonged to our group of disciples. Jesus chose him to work together with us.’

18Judas received some money for the bad thing that he did. He bought a field with that money. But he fell down in that field and he died. His body broke open and the inside parts of his body poured out.

19All the people who lived in Jerusalem heard about his death. So they called that field ‘Akeldama’ in their own language. ‘Akeldama’ means ‘The Field of Blood’.

20Peter then said, ‘This is what King David wrote in the book of Psalms: “Let the house that he lived in become empty, so that nobody lives in it.” David also wrote: “Let somebody else do the job which he did.” ’

21Peter then said, ‘Because of this, we must choose another man instead of Judas. That man must have been one of our group all the time that the Lord Jesus was with us.

22That is, from the time when John was baptizing people until the time when Jesus went up to heaven. He must be someone who saw Jesus become alive again after he died, as we did.’

23So the apostles agreed the names of two men. One of them was Joseph. People also called him Barsabbas and sometimes people called him Justus. The other man was called Matthias.

24Then the whole group prayed, ‘Lord, you know what everybody is really like. Please show us which man you have chosen.

25Which of these two men do you want to be an apostle instead of Judas? Judas left his work as an apostle. He has now gone to the place where he belongs.’

26Then the group used lots to choose the name of one man. It happened that they chose Matthias. So Matthias now became the 12th apostle, together with the other 11 men.