¹ In my earlier work, Theophilus, I dealt with everything Jesus had done and taught from the beginning

² until the day he gave his instructions to the apostles he had chosen through the Holy Spirit, and was taken up to heaven.

³ He had shown himself alive to them after his Passion by many demonstrations: for forty days he had continued to appear to them and tell them about the kingdom of God.

⁴ While at table with them, he had told them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for what the Father had promised. 'It is', he had said, 'what you have heard me speak about:

⁵ John baptised with water but, not many days from now, you are going to be baptised with the Holy Spirit.'

⁶ Now having met together, they asked him, 'Lord, has the time come for you to restore the kingdom to Israel?'

⁷ He replied, 'It is not for you to know times or dates that the Father has decided by his own authority,

⁸ but you will receive the power of the Holy Spirit which will come on you, and then you will be my witnesses not only in Jerusalem but throughout Judaea and Samaria, and indeed to earth's remotest end.'

⁹ As he said this he was lifted up while they looked on, and a cloud took him from their sight.

¹⁰ They were still staring into the sky as he went, when suddenly two men in white were standing beside them,

¹¹ and they said, 'Why are you Galileans standing here looking into the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come back in the same way as you have seen him go to heaven.'

¹² So from the Mount of Olives, as it is called, they went back to Jerusalem, a short distance away, no more than a Sabbath walk;

¹³ and when they reached the city they went to the upper room where they were staying; there were Peter and John, James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Jude son of James.

¹⁴ With one heart all these joined constantly in prayer, together with some women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.

¹⁵ One day Peter stood up to speak to the brothers -- there were about a hundred and twenty people in the congregation,

¹⁶ 'Brothers,' he said, 'the passage of scripture had to be fulfilled in which the Holy Spirit, speaking through David, foretells the fate of Judas, who acted as guide to the men who arrested Jesus-

¹⁷ after being one of our number and sharing our ministry.

¹⁸ As you know, he bought a plot of land with the money he was paid for his crime. He fell headlong and burst open, and all his entrails poured out.

¹⁹ Everybody in Jerusalem heard about it and the plot came to be called "Bloody Acre", in their language Hakeldama.

²⁰ Now in the Book of Psalms it says: Reduce his encampment to ruin and leave his tent unoccupied. And again: Let someone else take over his office.

²¹ 'Out of the men who have been with us the whole time that the Lord Jesus was living with us,

²² from the time when John was baptising until the day when he was taken up from us, one must be appointed to serve with us as a witness to his resurrection.'

²³ Having nominated two candidates, Joseph known as Barsabbas, whose surname was Justus, and Matthias,

²⁴ they prayed, 'Lord, you can read everyone's heart; show us therefore which of these two you have chosen

²⁵ to take over this ministry and apostolate, which Judas abandoned to go to his proper place.'

²⁶ They then drew lots for them, and as the lot fell to Matthias, he was listed as one of the twelve apostles.

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The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) is a Catholic translation of the Bible published in 1985. The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) has become the most widely used Roman Catholic Bible outside of the United States. It has the imprimatur of Cardinal George Basil Hume.

Like its predecessor, the Jerusalem Bible, the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) version is translated "directly from the Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic." The 1973 French translation, the Bible de Jerusalem, is followed only "where the text admits to more than one interpretation." Introductions and notes, with some modifications, are taken from the Bible de Jerusalem.

Source: The Very Reverend Dom (Joseph) Henry Wansbrough, OSB, MA (Oxon), STL (Fribourg), LSS (Rome), a monk of Ampleforth Abbey and a biblical scholar. He was General Editor of the New Jerusalem Bible. "New Jerusalem Bible, Regular Edition", pg. v.

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