Acts 12

¹About that time, King Herod reached out to harm some who belonged to the church.

²{He had} James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword.

³And seeing that [this] pleased the Jews, [Herod] proceeded to seize Peter during the Feast of Unleavened [Bread].

⁴He arrested [him] and put [him] in prison, handing [him] over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers [each]. [Herod] intended to bring him out to the people after the Passover.

⁵So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was fervently praying to God for him.

⁶On [the] night [before] Herod was to bring him [to trial], Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, with sentries standing guard at the entrance to the prison.

⁷Suddenly an angel of [the] Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He tapped Peter on the side [and] woke him up, saying, “Get up quickly.” And the chains fell off [his] wrists.

⁸“Get dressed and put on your sandals,” said the angel. Peter did so, and [the angel] told him, “Wrap your cloak {around you} and follow me.”

⁹[So] [Peter] followed him out, [but] he was unaware that what the angel was doing was real. He thought he was only seeing a vision.

¹⁰They passed [the] first and second guards [and] came to the iron gate leading to the city, which opened for them by itself. [When] they had gone outside [and] walked the length of one block, the angel suddenly left him.

¹¹Then Peter came to himself [and] said, “Now I know for sure that the Lord has sent His angel and rescued me from Herod’s grasp and [from] everything the Jewish people were anticipating.”

¹²And [when] he had realized [this], he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, [also] called Mark, where many [people] had gathered together and were praying.

¹³He knocked [at] the outer gate, [and] a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer [it].

¹⁴When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed [that] she forgot to open the gate, but ran inside [and] announced, “Peter is standing at the gate!”

¹⁵“You are out of your mind,” they told her. But [when] she kept insisting [it] was so, they said, “It must be his angel.”

¹⁶But Peter kept on knocking, and [when] they opened [the door] [and] saw him, they were astounded.

¹⁷[Peter] motioned with [his] hand for silence, [and] he described how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. “Send word to James and to the brothers,” he said, and he left for another place.

¹⁸At daybreak there was no small commotion among the soldiers as to what had become [of] Peter.

¹⁹[After] Herod had searched for him [unsuccessfully], he examined the guards [and] ordered that they be executed. Then he went down from Judea to Caesarea [and] spent some time [there].

²⁰Now [Herod] was in a furious dispute [with the] people of Tyre and Sidon, and they convened before him. Having secured the support of Blastus, the king’s chamberlain, they asked for peace, because their region depended on the king’s [country] for food.

²¹On the appointed day, Herod donned [his] royal [robes], sat on [his] throne, [and] addressed [the people].

²²And [they] began to shout, “[This is the] voice of a god, not a man!”

²³Immediately, because [Herod] did not give glory to God, an angel of [the] Lord struck him {down}, and he was eaten by worms [and] died.

²⁴But the word of God continued to spread and multiply.

²⁵[When] Barnabas and Saul had fulfilled [their] mission to Jerusalem, they returned, bringing with [them] John, [also] called Mark.