A reading from the Acts of the Apostles.

On the day of Pentecost, Peter stood up with the Eleven and addressed the crowd, “Women and men of Judea, and all you who live in Jerusalem!  Listen to what I have to say.

“Jesus the Nazarene was one whom God sent to you with miracles, portents and signs as his credentials.  These God worked through him when he was in your midst, as you well know.  Jesus was delivered up by the set purpose and plan of God; you even made use of godless people to crucify and kill him.  God freed him from death’s bitter pangs, however, and raised him up again, for it was impossible that death should keep its hold on him.  David says,

‘I have set Our God ever before me;
God is at my right hand, and I will not be disturbed.
My heart has been glad and my tongue has rejoiced,
my body will live on in hope,
for You will not abandon my soul to the nether world,
nor will You suffer Your faithful one to undergo corruption.
You have shown me the paths of life;
You will fill me with joy in Your presence.’ 

“Sisters and brothers, I can speak confidently to you about our ancestor David.  He died and was buried and his grave is with us to this day.  But he was a prophet and he knew that God had promised him with an oath that one of his descendants would sit upon his throne.  So what he was foreseeing and talking about was the resurrection of the Messiah: the one not abandoned to the underworld, whose body didn’t decay.  God raised Jesus to life and we are all witnesses to that.

“Exalted to the right hand of God, Jesus received the promise of the Holy Spirit from Abba God, and what you now hear and see is the outpouring of that promise.”

The Word of God recorded in the Acts of the Apostles.