A reading from the Acts of the Apostles.

The Apostles and the brothers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles too had accepted the Word of God.

So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers confronted him, saying,

You entered the house of an uncircumcised people and ate with them.

Peter began and explained it to them step by step, saying, I was at prayer in the city of Joppa, when in a trance I had a vision.

Something resembling a large sheet coming down, lowered from the sky by its four corners, and it came to me.

Looking intently into it, I observed and saw the four-legged animals of the earth, the wild beasts, the reptiles, and the birds of the sky.

I also heard a voice say to me, get up, Peter, slaughter, and eat.

But I said, certainly not, sir, because nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.

But a second time a voice from heaven answered, what God has made clean,

you are not to call profane. This happened three times. And then everything was drawn up again

into the sky. Just then three men appeared at the house where we were who had been sent to me from

Caesarea. The spirit told me to accompany them without discriminating. These six brothers also went

with me and we entered the man's house. He related to us how he had been seen the angel standing in his

house saying, send someone to Joppa and summon Simon, who is called Peter. You will speak, he will

speak, who will speak words to you, by which you and all your household will be saved. As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, as it had

upon us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord and how he said, John baptized with

water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. If then God gave them the same gift he gave to us, when he came to believe in the Lord

Jesus Christ, who is I to be able to hinder God?

When they said this, they stopped objecting and glorified God saying, God has then granted life-given repentance to the Gentiles to the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God. A thirst is my soul for the living God. A thirst is my soul for the living God.

As the hind longs for running waters, so my soul longs for you, O God.

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