Acts 12
The full text of Acts 12 in the Trinity Bible Version — clear modern English, translated from the original Greek. Free to read.
1 About that time King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to harm them.
2 He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword.
3 When he saw that this pleased the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter as well. This happened during the Festival of Unleavened Bread.
4 After arresting him, Herod put him in prison and handed him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. He intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover.
5 So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was praying fervently to God for him.
6 The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, while sentries stood guard at the door.
7 Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up, saying, "Quick, get up!" And the chains fell off his wrists.
8 Then the angel said to him, "Get dressed and put on your sandals." And Peter did so. "Wrap your cloak around you and follow me," the angel told him.
9 Peter followed him out, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening; he thought he was seeing a vision.
10 They passed the first and second guard posts and came to the iron gate leading into the city, which opened for them by itself. They went through it, and after they had walked the length of one street, suddenly the angel left him.
11 Then Peter came to himself and said, "Now I know for certain that the Lord sent his angel and rescued me from Herod's grip and from everything the Jewish people were expecting."
12 When this dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying.
13 Peter knocked at the outer gate, and a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer it.
14 When she recognized Peter's voice, she was so overjoyed that instead of opening the gate she ran back inside and announced that Peter was standing outside.
15 "You're out of your mind," they told her. But she kept insisting that it was true. So they said, "It must be his angel."
16 But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished.
17 Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet and described how the Lord had brought him out of prison. "Tell James and the other brothers about this," he said, and then he left for another place.
18 In the morning there was no small commotion among the soldiers over what had become of Peter.
19 After Herod searched for him and did not find him, he questioned the guards and ordered that they be executed. Then Herod went down from Judea to Caesarea and stayed there.
20 Herod had been quarreling with the people of Tyre and Sidon. Now they came to him as a group and, after winning over Blastus, the king's personal servant, they asked for peace, because their region depended on the king's country for its food supply.
21 On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to them.
22 They shouted, "This is the voice of a god, not of a man!"
23 Immediately, because Herod did not give the glory to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.
24 But the word of God continued to spread and flourish.
25 When Barnabas and Saul had finished their mission, they returned from Jerusalem, taking with them John, also called Mark.
Translation notes (8)
- Acts 12:1a This Herod is Herod Agrippa I, grandson of Herod the Great and ruler of Judea from A.D. 41 to 44; he is not the king of the nativity accounts nor the Herod Antipas of the passion narratives. The Greek phrase epebalen tas cheiras, literally 'laid hands on', describes the arrest, and kakosai, 'to mistreat', states his intent.
- Acts 12:4a The Greek pascha (πάσχα), 'Passover', appears here as elsewhere in the New Testament; the King James Version's rendering "Easter" in this verse, inherited from Tyndale, is an anachronism, since the feast in view is the Jewish Passover. The phrase tessarsin tetradiois, 'four squads of four', describes the Roman practice of rotating guard details through the four watches of the night.
- Acts 12:15a The phrase 'his angel' refers to a Jewish belief that each person had a guardian or representative angel; the group assumes Peter himself cannot be at the door.
- Acts 12:17a The James named here is not the apostle James son of Zebedee, whose execution by Herod is reported earlier in this chapter, but James the brother of Jesus, who emerges as a leading figure in the Jerusalem church (Acts 15:13; Galatians 1:19). Luke leaves the phrase heteron topon, 'another place', unspecified, and Peter's destination remains unknown.
- Acts 12:19a The Greek apachthēnai (ἀπαχθῆναι), literally 'to be led away', is a standard euphemism for execution; Roman practice held guards liable for the penalty of an escaped prisoner. Caesarea Maritima, built by Herod the Great, served as the seat of Roman administration in Judea, so Herod Agrippa's move there was a return to the province's political capital.
- Acts 12:20a Greek ho epi tou koitōnos, literally 'the one over the bedchamber', designates a royal chamberlain, an official whose intimate access to the king made him a valuable intermediary. The Phoenician coastal cities of Tyre and Sidon had long imported grain from Galilee and the Judean interior, a dependence attested as early as 1 Kings 5:11, which explains their urgency in seeking peace with Herod Agrippa.
- Acts 12:23a Greek skōlēkobrōtos (σκωληκόβρωτος), 'eaten by worms', occurs only here in the New Testament. Josephus (Antiquities 19.343–350) independently records the death of Herod Agrippa I at Caesarea in AD 44, describing a sudden violent abdominal illness that struck him after the crowd acclaimed him as a god.
- Acts 12:25a Some early manuscripts read 'returned to Jerusalem'; however, the better-attested reading is 'from Jerusalem,' which matches the relief errand described in 11:30.
About this translation
The Trinity Bible Version (TBV) is Trinity Bible's own modern English translation, worked directly from the original Greek and honest to the earliest manuscripts. It was completed in 2026 — the most modern English Bible translation — and is exclusive to Trinity Bible. Every chapter, including all of Acts, is free to read here on the web.
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