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And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Brethren, hearken unto me:
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Symeon hath rehearsed how first God visited the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name.
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And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written,
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After these things I will return, And I will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen; And I will build again the ruins thereof, And I will set it up:
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That the residue of men may seek after the Lord, And all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called,
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Saith the Lord, who maketh these things known from of old.
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Wherefore my judgment is, that we trouble not them that from among the Gentiles turn to God;
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but that we write unto them, that they abstain from the pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from what is strangled, and from blood.
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For Moses from generations of old hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath.
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Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men out of their company, and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas; [namely], Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, chief men among the brethren:
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and they wrote [thus] by them, The apostles and the elders, brethren, unto the brethren who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greeting: