Gaze down from heaven, and behold from your holy habitation and from your glory. Where is your zeal, and your strength, the fullness of your heart and of your compassion? They have held themselves back from me.
But as for you, son of man, you should not fear them, and you should not dread their words. For you are among unbelievers and subversives, and you are living with scorpions. You should not fear their words, and you should not dread their faces. For they are a provoking house.
Incline your ear, O my God, and hear, open your eyes and see our desolation and the city over which your name is invoked. For it is not through our justifications that we offer requests before your face, but through the fullness of your compassion.
Nevertheless, truly I have been filled with the strength of the Spirit of the Lord, with judgment and virtue, in order to announce to Jacob his wickedness and to Israel his sin.
Then Paul and Barnabas said firmly: "It was necessary to speak the Word of God first to you. But because you reject it, and so judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles.
And so, they remained for a long time, acting faithfully in the Lord, offering testimony to the Word of his grace, providing signs and wonders done by their hands.
For the king knows about these things. To him also, I am speaking with constancy. For I think that none of these things are unknown to him. And neither were these things done in a corner.
Then, seeing the constancy of Peter and John, having verified that they were men without letters or learning, they wondered. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.
But they, threatening them, sent them away, having not found a way that they might punish them because of the people. For all were glorifying the things that had been done in these events.
And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered was moved. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. And they were speaking the Word of God with confidence.
But Barnabas took him aside and led him to the Apostles. And he explained to them how he had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken to him, and how, in Damascus, he had acted faithfully in the name of Jesus.
Instead, having previously suffered and been treated shamefully, as you know, at Philippi, we had confidence in our God, so as to speak the Gospel of God to you with much solicitude.
But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that through me the preaching would be accomplished, and so that all the Gentiles would hear. And I was freed from the mouth of the lion.