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New Testament Reading - In Lystra and Derbe

^5-6When Paul and Barnabas learned of a plot to incite a mob of Gentiles, Jews, and Jewish leaders to attack and stone them, they fled for their lives, going to the cities of Lycaonia, Lystra, Derbe, and the surrounding area, ⁷and preaching the Good News there.

⁸While they were at Lystra, they came upon a man with crippled feet who had been that way from birth, so he had never walked. ⁹He was listening as Paul preached, and Paul noticed him and realized he had faith to be healed. ¹⁰So Paul called to him, “Stand up!” and the man leaped to his feet and started walking!

¹¹When the listening crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted (in their local dialect, of course), “These men are gods in human bodies!” ¹²They decided that Barnabas was the Greek god Jupiter, and that Paul, because he was the chief speaker, was Mercury! ¹³The local priest of the Temple of Jupiter, located on the outskirts of the city, brought them cartloads of flowers and prepared to sacrifice oxen to them at the city gates before the crowds.

¹⁴But when Barnabas and Paul saw what was happening, they ripped at their clothing in dismay and ran out among the people, shouting, ¹⁵“Men! What are you doing? We are merely human beings like yourselves! We have come to bring you the Good News that you are invited to turn from the worship of these foolish things and to pray instead to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them. ¹⁶In bygone days he permitted the nations to go their own ways, ¹⁷but he never left himself without a witness; there were always his reminders—the kind things he did such as sending you rain and good crops and giving you food and gladness.”

¹⁸But even so, Paul and Barnabas could scarcely restrain the people from sacrificing to them!