Be Baptized

²⁶Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go south on the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a desert road.) ²⁷So he got up and went. There he met an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship, ²⁸and was returning home, sitting in his chariot, reading the prophet Isaiah. ²⁹Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot.” ³⁰So Philip ran up to it and heard the man reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked him, “Do you understand what you’re reading?” ³¹The man replied, “How in the world can I, unless someone guides me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

³²Now the passage of scripture the man was reading was this:“He was led like a sheep to slaughter,and like a lamb before its shearer is silent,so he did not open his mouth.

³³In humiliation justice was taken from him. Who can describe his posterity? For his life was taken away from the earth.”

³⁴Then the eunuch said to Philip, “Please tell me, who is the prophet saying this about—himself or someone else?” ³⁵So Philip started speaking, and beginning with this scripture proclaimed the good news about Jesus to him. ³⁶Now as they were going along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “Look, there is water! What is to stop me from being baptized?” ³⁸So he ordered the chariot to stop, and both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. ³⁹Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him any more, but went on his way rejoicing.