change of speaker and \p

45-ACT.usfm

@@ -166,7 +166,7 @@
 \c 3
 \p
 \v 1 One day Peter and John were going to the temple courtyard. It was three o'clock in the afternoon, at the time when people prayed there.
-\v 2 There was a man there who had not been able to walk from the time he was born. He was sitting by the gate called Beautiful Gate at the entrance to the temple area. People carried him there every day, so that he could ask those who were entering the temple courtyard to give him some money.
+\v 2 There was a man there who had not been able to walk from the time he was born. He was sitting by the gate called Beautiful Gate at the entrance to the temple area. People carried him there every day so that he could ask those who were entering the temple courtyard to give him some money.
 \p
 \v 3 As Peter and John were about to enter the temple courtyard, he began to ask them to give him some money.
 \s5
@@ -608,12 +608,14 @@
 \v 19 saying, "Enable me also to do what you are doing, so that everyone on whom I place my hands may receive the Holy Spirit."
 
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+\p
 \v 20 But Peter said to him, "May you and your money be destroyed, because you tried to get God's gift with money!
 \v 21 You cannot work with us in what we are doing, because your heart is not right with God!
 \v 22 So stop thinking wickedly like that, and plead that the Lord, if he is willing, will forgive you for what you wickedly thought in your heart to do!
 \v 23 Turn away from your evil ways, because I perceive that you are extremely envious of us, and you are a slave of your continual desire to do evil!"
 
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+\p
 \v 24 Then Simon answered, "Pray to the Lord that he will not do to me what you just said!"
 
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@@ -629,9 +631,13 @@
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 \p
 \v 29 God's Spirit told Philip, "Go near to that chariot and keep walking close to it!"
+\p
 \v 30 So Philip ran to the chariot and heard the official reading what the prophet Isaiah had written. He asked the man, "Do you understand what you are reading?"
+\p
 \v 31 He answered Philip, "No! I cannot possibly understand it if there is no one to explain it to me!" Then the man said to Philip, "Please come up and sit beside me."
+
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+\p
 \v 32 The part of the scriptures that the official was reading was this: "He is as calm as a sheep that people lead to the place where they are going to kill it, or as a lamb stands in silence while its wool is being cut off.
 \q
 \v 33 He will be humiliated. He will not receive justice. No one will be able to tell about his descendants—for he will have no descendants—because they will take away his life on this earth."
@@ -680,12 +686,15 @@
 \v 12 Saul has seen a vision in which a man named Ananias entered the house where he was staying and put his hands on him in order that he might see again."
 
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+\p
 \v 13 Ananias answered, "But Lord, many people have told me about this man! He has done many evil things to the people in Jerusalem who believe in you!
 \v 14 The chief priests have given him power to come here to Damascus in order to arrest all those who believe in you!"
+\p
 \v 15 But the Lord Jesus told Ananias, "Go to Saul! Do what I say, because I have chosen him to serve me in order that he might speak about me both to non-Jewish people and their kings and to the Israelite people.
 \v 16 I myself will tell him that he must often suffer in order to tell people about me."
 
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+\p
 \v 17 So Ananias went, and after he found the house where Saul was, he entered it. Then, as soon as he met Saul, he put his hands on him, and he said, "Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus himself commanded me to come to you. He is the same one who appeared to you while you were traveling along the road to Damascus. He sent me to you in order that you might see again and that you might be guided by the Holy Spirit in all you do."
 \v 18 Instantly, things like fish scales fell from Saul's eyes, and he was able to see again. Then he stood up and was baptized.
 \v 19 After Saul ate some food, he became strong again. Saul stayed with the other believers in Damascus for several days.
@@ -766,7 +775,9 @@
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 \v 3 One day at about three o'clock in the afternoon Cornelius saw a vision. He clearly saw an angel whom God had sent. He saw the angel coming into his room and saying to him, "Cornelius!"
-\v 4 Cornelius stared at the angel and became terrified. Then he asked fearfully, "Sir, what do you want?" The angel who was sent from God answered him, "You have pleased God because you have been praying regularly to him and you often give money to help poor people. Those things have been like a memorial offering to God.
+\p
+\v 4 Cornelius stared at the angel and became terrified. Then he asked fearfully, "Sir, what do you want?" 
+\p The angel who was sent from God answered him, "You have pleased God because you have been praying regularly to him and you often give money to help poor people. Those things have been like a memorial offering to God.
 \v 5 So now command some men to go to Joppa and tell them to bring back a man named Simon whose other name is Peter.
 \v 6 He is staying with a man, also named Simon, who makes leather. His house is near the ocean."
 
@@ -783,7 +794,9 @@
 
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 \v 13 Then he heard God say to him, "Peter, stand up, kill some of these and eat them!"
+\p
 \v 14 But Peter replied, "Lord, surely you do not really want me to do that since I have never eaten anything that our Jewish law says is unacceptable to you or something that we must not eat!"
+\p
 \v 15 Then Peter heard God talk to him a second time. He said, "I am God, so if I have made something acceptable to eat, do not say that it is not acceptable to eat!"
 \v 16 This happened three times. Immediately after that, the sheet with the animals and birds was then pulled back into the sky.
 
@@ -793,16 +806,20 @@
 \v 18 They called and asked if a man named Simon, whose other name was Peter, was staying there.
 
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+\p
 \v 19 While Peter was still trying to understand what the vision meant, God's Spirit said to him, "Listen! Three men are here who want to see you.
 \v 20 So get up and go downstairs and go with them! Do not think that you should not go with them, because I have sent them here!"
+\p
 \v 21 So Peter went down to the men and said to them, "Greetings! I am the man you are looking for. Why have you come?"
 
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+\p
 \v 22 They replied, "Cornelius, who is a Roman army officer, sent us here. He is a good man who worships God, and all of the Jewish people who know about him say that he is a very good man. An angel said to him, 'Tell some men to go to Joppa to see Simon Peter and bring him here, so that you can hear what he has to say.'"
 \v 23 So Peter invited them into the house and told them that they should stay there that night.
 \p The next day Peter got ready and went with the men. Several of the believers from Joppa also went with him.
 
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+\p
 \v 24 The day after that, they arrived in the city of Caesarea. Cornelius was waiting for them. He had also invited his relatives and close friends to come, so they were there in his house too.
 
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@@ -820,7 +837,8 @@
 \v 30 Cornelius replied, "About this time three days ago I was praying to God in my house, as I regularly do at three o'clock in the afternoon. Suddenly a man whose clothes shone brightly stood in front of me
 \v 31 and said, 'Cornelius, God has heard your prayer. He has also noticed that you have often given money to help poor people, and he is pleased with that.
 \v 32 So now, send messengers to go to the city of Joppa in order to ask Simon whose other name is Peter to come here. He is staying near the ocean in a house that belongs to another man named Simon, who makes leather.'
-\v 33 So I immediately sent some men who asked you to come here, and I certainly thank you for coming. Now we all are gathered here, knowing that God is with us, in order to hear all the things that the Lord God has commanded you to say. So please speak to us."
+\v 33 So I immediately sent some men who asked you to come here, and I certainly thank you for coming. 
+\p Now we all are gathered here, knowing that God is with us, in order to hear all the things that the Lord God has commanded you to say. So please speak to us."
 
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@@ -854,16 +872,12 @@
 
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 \c 11
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 \v 1 The apostles and other believers who lived in various towns in the province of Judea heard people say that some non-Jewish people had also believed the message of God about Jesus.
 \v 2 But there were some Jewish believers in Jerusalem who wanted all followers of Christ to be circumcized. When Peter returned from Caesarea to Jerusalem, they met with him and criticized him.
 \v 3 They said to him, "Not only was it wrong for you to visit in the homes of uncircumcized non-Jews, you even ate with them!"
 
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 \v 4 So Peter began to explain exactly what had happened.
 \v 5 He said, "I was praying by myself in the city of Joppa, and in a trance I saw a vision. I saw that something like a large sheet was being lowered from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to where I was.
@@ -871,13 +885,13 @@
 
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 \v 7 Then I heard God commanding me, 'Peter, get up, kill and eat them!'
+\p
 \v 8 But I replied, 'Lord, you surely do not really want me to do that, because I have never eaten anything that our laws say that we must not eat!'
+\p
 \v 9 God spoke from heaven to me a second time, 'I am God, so if I have made something acceptable to eat, do not say it is unacceptable.'
 \v 10 This same thing happened two more times, and then the sheet with all those animals and birds was pulled up into heaven again.
 
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 \v 11 At that exact moment, three men who had been sent from Caesarea arrived at the house where I was staying.
 \v 12 God's Spirit told me that I should not hesitate to go with them even though they were not Jews. Six Jewish believers also went with me to Caesarea, and then we went into that non-Jewish man's house.
@@ -909,15 +923,12 @@
 \v 23 When he got there, he realized that God had acted kindly toward the believers. So he was very happy, and he was encouraging all of the believers to continue to trust completely in the Lord Jesus.
 \v 24 Barnabas was a good man whom the Holy Spirit completely controlled, one who trusted God completely. Because of what Barnabas did, many people there believed in the Lord Jesus.
 
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 \v 25 Then Barnabas went to Tarsus city in Cilicia to look for Saul.
 \v 26 After he found him, Barnabas brought him back to Antioch to help teach the believers. So during a whole year Barnabas and Saul met regularly with the church there and taught large numbers of people about Jesus. It was at Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians.
 
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 \v 27 During the time that Barnabas and Saul were at Antioch, some believers who were prophets arrived there from Jerusalem.
 \v 28 One of them, whose name was Agabus, stood up in order to speak. God's Spirit enabled him to prophesy that there would soon be a famine in many countries. (This famine happened when Claudius was the Roman emperor.)
@@ -928,8 +939,6 @@
 
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 \c 12
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 \v 1 It was about this time that King Herod Agrippa sent soldiers to arrest some of the leaders of the group of believers in Jerusalem. The soldiers put them in prison. He did that because he wanted to make the believers suffer.
 \v 2 He commanded a soldier to cut off the head of the apostle James, the older brother of the apostle John. So the soldier did that.
@@ -939,8 +948,6 @@
 \v 4 After they arrested Peter, they put him in prison. They commanded four groups of soldiers to guard Peter. Each group had four soldiers. Herod wanted to bring Peter out of prison and judge him in front of the Jewish people after the Passover Festival was finished. He then planned to execute Peter.
 
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 \v 5 So for several days Peter stayed in prison. But the other believers in their group in Jerusalem were praying earnestly to God that he would help Peter.
 \v 6 The night before Herod planned to bring Peter out from prison to have him executed publicly, Peter was sleeping in the prison between two soldiers, with two chains binding him. Two other soldiers were guarding the prison doors.
@@ -955,8 +962,6 @@
 
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 \v 11 Then Peter finally realized that what had happened to him was not a vision, but that it had really happened. So he thought, "Now I really know that the Lord God sent an angel to help me. He rescued me from what Herod planned to do to me and also from all the things that the Jewish leaders expected would happen."
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 \v 12 When Peter realized that God had rescued him, he went to Mary's house. She was the mother of John whose other name was Mark. Many believers had assembled there, and they were praying that God would help Peter somehow.
 
@@ -969,15 +974,12 @@
 \v 16 But Peter continued knocking on the door. So when someone finally opened the door, they saw that it was Peter, and they were completely amazed!
 \v 17 Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet. Then he told them exactly how the Lord God had led him out of the prison. He also said, "Tell James, the leader of our group, and our other fellow believers what has happened." Then Peter left and went away somewhere else.
 
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 \v 18 The next morning the soldiers who had been guarding Peter became terribly upset, because they did not know what had happened to him.
 \v 19 Then Herod heard about it. So he commanded soldiers to search for Peter, but they did not find him. Then he questioned the soldiers who had been guarding Peter, and commanded them to be led away to be executed. Afterwards, Herod went from the province of Judea down to the city of Caesarea, where he stayed for some time.
 
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 \v 20 King Herod had been furiously angry with the people who lived in the cities of Tyre and Sidon. Then one day some men who represented them came together to the city of Caesarea in order to meet with Herod. They persuaded Blastus, who was one of Herod's important officials, to tell Herod that the people in their cities wanted to make peace with him. They wanted to be able to trade with the people that Herod ruled, because they needed to buy food from those regions.
 \v 21 On the day that Herod had planned to meet with them, he put on very expensive clothes that showed that he was king. Then he sat on his throne and formally addressed all the people who had gathered there.
@@ -987,23 +989,19 @@
 \v 23 So, because Herod let the people praise him instead of praising God, immediately an angel from the Lord God caused Herod to become seriously ill. Many worms ate his intestines, and soon he died very painfully.
 
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 \v 24 The believers continued telling God's message to people in many places, and the number of people who believed in Jesus was continually increasing.
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 \v 25 When Barnabas and Saul finished delivering the money to help the Jewish believers in the province of Judea, they left Jerusalem and returned to the city of Antioch, in the province of Syria. They took John, whose other name was Mark, with them.
 
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 \c 13
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 \v 1 Among the group of believers in Antioch in the province of Syria there were prophets and those who taught people about Jesus. They were Barnabas; Simeon, who was also called Niger; Lucius, who from Cyrene; Manaen, who had grown up with King Herod Antipas; and Saul.
 \v 2 While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said to them, "Choose Barnabas and Saul to serve me and to go and do the work that I have chosen them to do!"
 \v 3 So they continued to fast and pray. Then they put their hands on Barnabas and Saul and prayed that God would help them. Then they sent them off to do what the Holy Spirit had commanded.
-\s5
 
+\s5
 \p
 \v 4 The Holy Spirit gave Barnabas and Saul instructions about where to go. So they went down from Antioch to the city of Seleucia by the sea. From there they went by ship to the city of Salamis on the Island of Cyprus.
 \v 5 While they were in Salamis, they went to the Jewish meeting places. There they proclaimed the message from God about Jesus. John Mark went with them and was helping them.
@@ -1114,16 +1112,12 @@
 
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 \c 14
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-
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 \v 1 At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish meeting place and spoke very powerfully about the Lord Jesus. As a result, many Jews and also non-Jews believed in Jesus.
 \v 2 But some of the Jews refused to believe that message. They told the non-Jews not to believe it; they made some of the non-Jews angry toward the believers there.
 
 \s5
 \v 3 So Paul and Barnabas spent a long time there speaking boldly for the Lord, and the Lord Jesus enabled them to do many miracles. In this way he showed people the truth of the message that, even though we do not deserve it, the Lord saves us.
-
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 \v 4 The people who lived in Iconium had two different opinions. Some agreed with the Jews. Others agreed with the apostles.
 
@@ -1133,22 +1127,19 @@
 \v 7 While they were in that area, they continually told the people the message about the Lord Jesus.
 
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 \v 8 In Lystra, a man was sitting there who was crippled in his legs. When his mother gave birth to him, he had crippled legs, so he was never able to walk.
 \v 9 He listened as Paul was speaking about the Lord Jesus. Paul looked directly at him and could see in the man's face that he believed that the Lord Jesus could make him well.
 \v 10 So with a loud voice, Paul called out to him, "Stand up!" When the man heard that, he immediately jumped up and began to walk around.
 
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 \v 11 When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they thought that Paul and Barnabas were the gods that they worshiped. So they shouted excitedly in their own Lycaonian language, "Look! The gods have made themselves to look like people and have come down from the sky to help us!"
 \v 12 They began to say that Barnabas was probably the chief god, whose name was Zeus. And they began to say that Paul was Hermes, the messenger for the other gods. They thought that because Paul was the one who had been speaking.
 \v 13 Just outside the gates of the city there was a temple where the people worshiped Zeus. The priest who was there heard what Paul and Barnabas had done, so he came to the city gate, where many people had already gathered. He brought two bulls with wreaths of flowers around their necks. The priest and the crowd of people wanted to kill the bulls as part of a ceremony to worship Paul and Barnabas.
 
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+\p
 \v 14 But when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard about that, they were very upset, so they tore their own clothes. They rushed among the people, shouting,
 \v 15 "Men, you must not kill those bulls to worship us! We are not gods! We are just human beings with the same feelings as you! We have come to tell you some good news! We have come to tell you about the God who is all-powerful. He wants you to stop worshiping other gods, because they cannot help you. This true God made the heavens, the earth, the oceans, and everything in them.
 \v 16 In the past, all of you non-Jewish people worshiped whatever gods that you wanted to. God let you worship them, because you did not know him.