Acts 15:7-21

7After they had all talked about this problem for a long time, Peter stood up to speak. He said, ‘My friends, you know that, a long time ago, God chose me from among all you leaders. He wanted me to teach Gentiles the good news about Jesus. God wanted them to hear his message and to believe in Jesus.

8God knows what people truly believe. He showed clearly that he accepts Gentile believers as his people. He gave his Holy Spirit to them in the same way that he did for us.

9He made no difference between them and us. When they believed in Jesus, he saved them. He made them clean inside.

10So do not say that God has done a wrong thing. God has shown us that he accepts Gentiles when they believe in Jesus. If you make the Gentile believers obey the Law of Moses, that is like a heavy weight on their necks. Even we Jews and our ancestors could not carry that heavy weight.

11God saves us who are Jews when we believe in Jesus. It is not because we obey the Law of Moses. It is because the Lord Jesus is kind to us. God saves Gentiles in the same way, when they believe in Jesus.’

12After Peter said this everybody in the group was quiet. Then Barnabas and Paul spoke to them. They said, ‘God helped us to do great miracles among the Gentiles. These showed that God was with us.’

13When they had finished their report, James spoke to the group. He said, ‘Listen to me, my friends.

14Simon Peter has just described to us what happened first with the Gentile believers. He explained how God chose some of them to belong to him as his own people.

15The message of God's prophets agrees completely with this. They wrote long ago:

16The Lord God said, “Later I will return. At that time I will make David's kingdom strong again. It has become like a house that has fallen down, but I will build it again so that it is strong.

17Then many other people will want to know me, the Lord God. Those are the Gentiles that I have chosen to belong to me. I, the Lord God, say this, and I will make these things happen.

18Long ago I caused people to know all these things.” ’

19James then said, ‘So this is what I have decided about this problem. Many Gentiles are now turning to God as believers. We should not make it difficult for them.

20Instead of that, we should write a letter to tell them how to live as believers. We should say to them, “Do not eat any food which people have given to their idols. That food has become unclean. Do not have sex with anyone that you are not married to. If people have strangled an animal to kill it, do not eat its meat. Do not eat anything that still has blood in it.”

21These rules are important, because people have known the Law of Moses for a very long time. On every Jewish day of rest, someone teaches us about the Law in our Jewish meeting places in every city.’