15:31

the people read it: Probably one of the leaders read the letter aloud so all of the other believers there could listen to what it said. In that way they all read it.

In some languages a literal translation would wrongly indicate that each person read it to himself. If that is true in your language, indicate that it was read aloud to the group. For example:

they read it aloud (NET Bible)
-or-
they ⌊listened as someone⌋ read it aloud

they rejoiced at its encouraging message: The letter implied that they did not have to obey the Jewish laws, including circumcision. So they were glad. Other ways to translate this are:

they rejoiced because of its encouragement (English Standard Version)
-or-
they were pleased because the letter encouraged them
-or-
its message encouraged them and they were glad

© 2001, 2021 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.