1. Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Symeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who was a close friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.
2. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”
3. Then, completing their fasting and prayer, they laid hands on them and sent them off.
4. So they, sent forth by the holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia and from there sailed to Cyprus.
5. When they arrived in Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues. They had John also as their assistant.
6. When they had traveled through the whole island as far as Paphos, they met a magician named Bar-Jesus who was a Jewish false prophet.
7. He was with the proconsul Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence, who had summoned Barnabas and Saul and wanted to hear the word of God.
8. But Elymas the magician (for that is what his name means) opposed them in an attempt to turn the proconsul away from the faith.
9. But Saul, also known as Paul, filled with the holy Spirit, looked intently at him
10. and said, “You son of the devil, you enemy of all that is right, full of every sort of deceit and fraud. Will you not stop twisting the straight paths of [the] Lord?
11. Even now the hand of the Lord is upon you. You will be blind, and unable to see the sun for a time.” Immediately a dark mist fell upon him, and he went about seeking people to lead him by the hand.
12. When the proconsul saw what had happened, he came to believe, for he was astonished by the teaching about the Lord.