But the voice answered me again from heaven, ‘What God has cleansed you must not call common.’
Parallel translations
- WEB But a voice answered me the second time out of heaven, ‘What God has cleansed, don’t you call unclean.’
- KJV But the voice answered me again from heaven, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.
- BSB But the voice spoke from heaven a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’
- NASB But a voice from heaven answered a second time, ‘What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.’
- NLT “But the voice from heaven spoke again: ‘Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean.’
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The heavenly voice answered that what God has cleansed Peter must not call unclean. God's declaration, not human tradition, defines what is clean.
Overview
The voice corrects Peter twice over: he must not treat as defiled what God has now pronounced clean. Applied to people, this means Gentiles cleansed by God through faith in Christ are not to be excluded. The verse anchors the church's acceptance of Gentiles in God's own pronouncement.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Acts 15:9He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith.
- Heb 9:13–14For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify to the cleanness of the flesh:
- Acts 10:34–35Peter opened his mouth and said, “Truly I perceive that God doesn’t show favoritism;
- Acts 10:15A voice came to him again the second time, “What God has cleansed, you must not call unclean.”
- Acts 10:28He said to them, “You yourselves know how it is an unlawful thing for a man who is a Jew to join himself or come to one of another nation, but God has shown me that I shouldn’t call any man unholy or unclean.
- 1 Tim 4:5For it is sanctified through the word of God and prayer.
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Christ at the center
Acts is the risen Christ continuing his work by the Spirit through the church, as the apostles preach that there is salvation in no other name under heaven.
How Acts 11:9 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.