3rd Sunday of Easter Year C: 1st Reading

Acts 5:27-32, 40b-41

When the captain and the court officers had brought the apostles in
   and made them stand before the Sanhedrin,
   the high priest questioned them,
   “We gave you strict orders, did we not,
   to stop teaching in that name?
Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching
   and want to bring this man’s blood upon us.”
But Peter and the apostles said in reply,
   “We must obey God rather than men.
The God of our ancestors raised Jesus,
   though you had him killed by hanging him on a tree.
God exalted him at his right hand as leader and savior
   to grant Israel repentance and forgiveness of sins.
We are witnesses of these things,
   as is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.”

The Sanhedrin ordered the apostles
   to stop speaking in the name of Jesus, and dismissed them.
So they left the presence of the Sanhedrin,
   rejoicing that they had been found worthy
   to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name.