Bible in 90 Days

³⁸ The officers reported these words to the magistrates. When they heard that they were Roman citizens, they were afraid. ³⁹ They went and apologized, brought them out of the prison, and requested that they leave the city. ⁴⁰ So when they had left the prison they went to Lydia’s house. There they saw and encouraged the brothers and sisters, and then they went on their way.

Another king!

17 Paul and Silas traveled through Amphipolis and Apollonia, and came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue. ² Paul went there, as he usually did, and for three sabbaths he spoke to them, expounding the scriptures, ³ interpreting and explaining that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and to rise from the dead, and that “This Jesus, that I am announcing to you, is the Messiah.” ⁴ Some of them were persuaded, and threw in their lot with Paul and Silas, including a large crowd of godfearing Greeks, together with quite a few of the leading women.

⁵ But the Jews were righteously indignant. They took some villainous men from the marketplace, drew a crowd, and threw the city into an uproar. They besieged Jason’s house and searched for Paul and Silas, to bring them out to the mob. ⁶ When they couldn’t find them, they dragged Jason and some of the Christians before the town authorities.

“These are the people who are turning the world upside down!” they yelled. “Now they’ve come here! ⁷ Jason has had them in his house! They are all acting against the decrees of Caesar—and they’re saying that there is another king, Jesus!”

⁸ When they heard these words, the crowd and the authorities were both greatly agitated. ⁹ They bound over Jason and the others, and then dismissed them.

Paul reaches Athens

¹⁰ The Christians in Thessalonica quickly sent Paul and Silas on, by night, to Beroea. When they got there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. ¹¹ The people there were more generous in spirit than those in Thessalonica. They received the word with considerable eagerness, searching the scriptures day by day to see if what they were hearing was indeed the case. ¹² Many of them became believers, including some of the well-born Greek women, and quite a few men.

¹³ But when the Jews from Thessalonica knew that the word of God had been proclaimed by Paul in Beroea, too, they came there as well, stirring up trouble and whipping up the crowd. ¹⁴ So the Christians quickly sent Paul away as far as the seacoast, while Silas and Timothy remained behind. ¹⁵ Those who were conducting Paul brought him all the way to Athens, where he told them to tell Silas and Timothy to join him as soon as possible. Then they left him there.

¹⁶ So Paul waited in Athens. While he was there, his spirit was stirred up as he saw the whole city absolutely full of idols. ¹⁷ He argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the godfearers, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. ¹⁸ Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were disputing with him.

“What can this word-scatterer be on about?” some were saying.

“He seems to be proclaiming foreign divinities,” declared others—since he was preaching “Jesus and Anastasis.” (“Anastasis” means “resurrection.”) ¹⁹ So they took him up to the Areopagus.

“Are we able to know,” they said, “what this new teaching really is that you are talking about? ²⁰ You are putting very strange ideas into our minds. We’d like to find out what it all means.”

²¹ All the Athenians, and the foreigners who live there, spend their time simply and solely in telling and hearing the latest novelty.

Paul among the philosophers

²² So Paul stood up in the midst of the Areopagus.

“Men of Athens,” he said, “I see that you are in every way an extremely religious people. ²³ For as I was going along and looking at your objects of worship, I saw an altar with the inscription, TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Well: I’m here to tell you about what it is that you are worshiping in ignorance. ²⁴ The God who made the world and everything in it, the one who is Lord of heaven and earth, doesn’t live in temples made by human hands. ²⁵ Nor does he need to be looked after by human hands, as though he lacked something, since he himself gives life and breath and all things to everyone. ²⁶ He made from one stock every race of humans to live on the whole face of the earth, allotting them their properly ordained times and the boundaries for their dwellings. ²⁷ The aim was that they would search for God, and perhaps reach out for him and find him. Indeed, he is actually not far from each one of us, ²⁸ for in him we live and move and exist; as also some of your own poets have put it, ‘For we are his offspring.’

²⁹ “Well, then, if we really are God’s offspring, we ought not to suppose that the divinity is like gold or silver or stone, formed by human skill and ingenuity. ³⁰ That was just ignorance; but the time for it has passed, and God has drawn a veil over it. Now, instead, he commands all people everywhere to repent, ³¹ because he has established a day on which he intends to call the world to account with full and proper justice by a man whom he has appointed. God has given all people his pledge of this by raising this man from the dead.”

³² When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them ridiculed Paul. But others said, “We will give you another hearing about this.” ³³ So Paul went out from their presence. ³⁴ But some people joined him and believed, including Dionysius, a member of the court of the Areopagus, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

A year in Corinth

18 After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. ² There he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently arrived from Italy with Priscilla his wife, due to Claudius’s edict banishing all Jews from Rome. Paul paid them a visit ³ and, because they were in the same business, he stayed with them and worked. They were, by trade, tentmakers.

⁴ Paul argued every sabbath in the synagogue, and persuaded both Jews and Greeks. ⁵ When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was putting great energy into the task of bearing forthright witness to the Jews that the Messiah really was Jesus. ⁶ When they opposed him, and blasphemed, he shook out his clothes.

“Your blood be on your own heads!” he said. “I am innocent. From now on I shall go to the Gentiles.”

⁷ He moved on from the synagogue, and went into the house of a man named Titius Justus, a godfearer who lived opposite the synagogue. ⁸ But Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, with all his household, and many of the Corinthians heard about it, came to faith, and were baptized.

⁹ The Lord spoke to Paul by night in a vision.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Speak on, and don’t be silent, ¹⁰ because I am with you, and nobody will be able to lay a finger on you to harm you. There are many of my people in this city.”

¹¹ He stayed there eighteen months, teaching the word of God among them.

Christianity declared legal in Achaea

¹² When Gallio was proconsul of Achaea, the Jews made a concerted attack on Paul, and led him to the official tribunal.

¹³ “This man,” they said, “is teaching people to worship God in illegal ways.”

¹⁴ Paul was getting ready to speak when Gallio intervened.

“Look here, you Jews,” he said to them. “If this was a matter of serious wrongdoing or some wicked villainy, I would receive your plea in the proper way. ¹⁵ But if this is a dispute about words, names and laws within your own customs, you can sort it out among yourselves. I don’t intend to be a judge in such matters.”

¹⁶ Then he dismissed them from the tribunal. ¹⁷ But the crowd seized Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, and beat him right there in front of the tribunal. Gallio, however, totally ignored this.

Apollos in Ephesus and Corinth

¹⁸ Paul stayed on for several more days with the Christians, and then said his farewells and sailed away to Syria, taking Priscilla and Aquila with him. In Cenchreae he had his hair cut off, since he was under a vow. ¹⁹ When they arrived at Ephesus he left them there, while he himself went into the synagogue and disputed with the Jews. ²⁰ When they asked him to stay with them for a longer time, he refused, ²¹ and took his leave.

“I will come back to you again,” he said, “if that’s God’s will.”

So he left Ephesus, ²² and went to Caesarea. Then he went up to Jerusalem, greeted the church, and went back to Antioch. ²³ When he had spent some time there, he went off again and traveled from one place to another throughout the region of Galatia and Phrygia, encouraging all the disciples.

²⁴ Now there arrived in Ephesus a Jew named Apollos, who came from Alexandria. He was an eloquent man, and powerful when it came to expounding scripture. ²⁵ He had received instruction in the Way of the Lord. He was an enthusiastic speaker, and taught the things about Jesus accurately, even though he only knew the baptism of John. ²⁶ He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him to one side and expounded the Way of God to him more accurately.

²⁷ He wanted to go across to Achaea. The Christians in Ephesus, by way of encouragement, wrote letters to the church there to welcome him. On his arrival, his work made a considerable impact, through God’s grace, on the believers, ²⁸ since he openly and powerfully refuted the Jews by demonstrating from the scriptures that the Messiah really was Jesus.

Paul in Ephesus

19 While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul traveled through the interior regions and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples, ² and said to them, “Did you receive the holy spirit when you believed?”

“We had not heard,” they replied, “that there was a ‘holy spirit.’ ”

³ “Well then,” said Paul, “into what were you baptized?”

“Into John’s baptism,” they replied.

⁴ “John baptized with a baptism of repentance for the people,” said Paul, “speaking about the one who was to come after him, and saying that that person would be the one that people should believe in—and that means Jesus.”

⁵ When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of Jesus. ⁶ Paul then laid his hands on them, and the holy spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. ⁷ There were about twelve men in all.

⁸ Paul went into the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months, arguing and persuading them about the kingdom of God. ⁹ But when some of them were hard-hearted, and wouldn’t believe, and made wicked allegations about the Way in front of everybody else, Paul left them. He took the disciples with him, and argued every day in the lecture-hall of Tyrannus. ¹⁰ He did this for two years, so that all the inhabitants of Asia, Jews and Greeks alike, heard the word of the Lord.

The power of God and the powers at Ephesus

¹¹ God performed unusual works of power through Paul’s hands. ¹² People used to take handkerchiefs or towels that had touched his skin and put them on the sick, and then their diseases would leave them and evil spirits would depart.

¹³ There were some traveling Jewish exorcists who tried to use the name of the Lord Jesus on people with evil spirits.

“I command you,” they used to say, “in the name of Jesus, the one Paul proclaims!”

¹⁴ There were seven of them who used to do this. They were the sons of Sceva, a Jewish high priest. ¹⁵ But on one occasion the evil spirit answered them back.

“I know Jesus,” it shouted, “and I am well acquainted with Paul; but who are you?”

¹⁶ The man who had the evil spirit pounced on them and, since he was much too strong for them, overpowered all of them, so that they fled out of the house naked and battered. ¹⁷ This became common knowledge among both Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus. Fear came on all of them, and the name of the Lord Jesus grew greatly in prestige.

¹⁸ Many people who became believers came forward to make public confession, revealing what they had been up to. ¹⁹ Some who had been practicing magic brought their books and burnt them in front of everyone; someone calculated how much they were all worth, and it came to fifty thousand silver pieces. ²⁰ So the word grew and was strong, in accordance with the Lord’s power.

²¹ Once all this had been finished, Paul decided in his spirit to go back through Macedonia and Achaea and, from there, on to Jerusalem.

“After I’ve been there,” he said, “I really must go and see Rome.”

²² He sent two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, on ahead to Macedonia, while he himself spent a little more time in Asia.

“Great is Ephesian Artemis!”

²³ Around that time there was a major disturbance because of the Way. ²⁴ There was a silversmith named Demetrius who made silver statues of Artemis, which brought the workmen a tidy income. ²⁵ He got them all together, along with other workers in the same business.

“Gentlemen,” he began. “You know that the reason we are doing rather well for ourselves is quite simply this business of ours. ²⁶ And now you see, and hear, that this fellow Paul is going around not only Ephesus but pretty well the whole of Asia, persuading the masses to change their way of life, telling them that gods made with hands are not gods after all! ²⁷ This not only threatens to bring our proper business into disrepute, but it might make people disregard the temple of the great goddess Artemis. Then she—and, after all, the whole of Asia, indeed the whole world, worships her!—she might lose her great majesty.”

²⁸ When they heard this, they were filled with rage.

“Great is Ephesian Artemis!” they shouted. “Great is Ephesian Artemis!”

²⁹ The whole city was filled with the uproar; everyone rushed together into the theater, dragging along with them the Macedonians Gaius and Aristarchus, two of Paul’s companions. ³⁰ Paul wanted to go in to speak to the people, but his followers wouldn’t let him. ³¹ Indeed, some of the local magistrates, who were friendly towards him, sent him a message urging him not to risk going into the theater. ³² Meanwhile, some people were shouting one thing, some another. In fact, the whole assembly was thoroughly confused, and most of them had no idea why they had come there in the first place. ³³ The Jews pushed Alexander forward, and some of the crowd informed him what was going on. He motioned with his hand, and was going to make a statement to the people to explain things. ³⁴ But when they realized he was a Jew, they all shouted together, for about two hours, “Great is Ephesian Artemis!”

³⁵ The town clerk quietened the crowd.

“Men of Ephesus,” he said, “is there anyone who doesn’t know that our city of Ephesus is the place which has the honor of being the home of Artemis the Great, and of the statue that fell from heaven? ³⁶ Nobody can deny it! So you should be quiet, and not do anything rash. ³⁷ You’ve brought these men here, but they haven’t stolen from the temple, or blasphemed our goddess. ³⁸ If Demetrius and his colleagues have a charge they want to bring against anyone, the courts are open and we have magistrates. People can present their cases against one another. ³⁹ But if you are wanting to know anything beyond that, it must be sorted out in the authorized assembly. ⁴⁰ Let me remind you that we ourselves are risking legal proceedings because of this riot today, since there is no reason we could give which would enable us to present a satisfactory explanation for this uproar.”

⁴¹ With these words, he dismissed the assembly.

Round the coast and out of the window

20 After the hue and cry had died down, Paul sent for the disciples. He encouraged them, said his farewells, and set off to go to Macedonia. ² He went through those regions, encouraging them with many words and, arriving in Greece, ³ stayed there three months. He was intending to set sail for Syria, but the Jews made a plot against him, and he decided to return instead through Macedonia.

⁴ He was accompanied on this trip by Sopater, son of Pyrrhus of Beroea; by Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessalonica; by Gaius from Derbe; and Timothy, and Tychicus and Trophimus from Asia. ⁵ They went on ahead and waited for us at Troas, ⁶ while we got on board ship at Philippi, after the days of Unleavened Bread, and joined them in Troas five days later. We stayed there for a week.

⁷ On the first day of the week we gathered to break bread. Paul was intending to leave the following morning. He was engaged in discussion with them, and he went on talking up to midnight. ⁸ There were several lamps burning in the upper room where we were gathered. ⁹ A young man named Eutychus was sitting by the window, and was overcome with a deep sleep as Paul went on and on. Once sleep had got the better of him, he fell down out of the third-story window, and was picked up dead.

¹⁰ Paul went down, stooped over him and picked him up.

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “There is life still in him.”

¹¹ He went back upstairs, broke bread and ate with them, and continued speaking until dawn. Then he left. ¹² They took up the young man alive and were very much comforted.

Paul the pastor looks back—and looks on

¹³ We went on ahead to the ship and set off for Assos, with the intention of picking Paul up there (he had decided that he would walk to that point). ¹⁴ When we arrived at Assos, we picked him up and went on to Mitylene, ¹⁵ and from there we sailed on the next day and arrived opposite Chios. The following day we got near to Samos, and the day after that we came to Miletus. ¹⁶ Paul had decided, you see, to pass by Ephesus, so that he wouldn’t have to spend more time in Asia. He was eager to get to Jerusalem, if he could, in time for the day of Pentecost.

¹⁷ From Miletus, Paul sent to Ephesus and called for the elders of the church, ¹⁸ and they came to him.

“You know very well,” he began, “how I have behaved with you all the time, since the first day I arrived in Asia. ¹⁹ I have served the Lord with all humility, with the tears and torments that came upon me because of the plots of the Jews. ²⁰ You know that I kept back nothing that would have been helpful to you, preaching to you and teaching you both in public and from house to house. ²¹ I bore witness both to Jews and Greeks about repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus.

²² “And now, look, I am going to Jerusalem, bound by the spirit. I have no idea what’s going to happen to me there, ²³ but only that the holy spirit testifies to me in city after city that captivity and trouble are in store for me. ²⁴ But I don’t reckon my life at any value, so long as I can finish my course, and the ministry which I have received from the Lord Jesus, to bear witness to the gospel of God’s grace.

²⁵ “So now,” he went on, “I have gone to and fro preaching the kingdom among you, but I know that none of you will ever see my face again. ²⁶ Therefore I bear witness to you this very day that I am innocent of everyone’s blood, ²⁷ since I did not shrink from declaring to you God’s entire plan.”

Watch out for yourselves, the flock and the wolves

²⁸ “Watch out for yourselves,” Paul continued, “and for the whole flock, in which the holy spirit has appointed you as guardians, to feed the church of God, which he purchased with his very own blood. ²⁹ I know that fierce wolves will come in after I am gone, and they won’t spare the flock. ³⁰ Yes, even from among yourselves people will arise, saying things which will distort the truth, and they will draw the disciples away after them. ³¹ Therefore keep watch, and remember that for three years, night and day, I didn’t stop warning each of you, with tears.

³² “So now I commit you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and give you the inheritance among all those whom God has sanctified. ³³ I never coveted anyone’s silver, or gold, or clothes. ³⁴ You yourselves know that these very hands worked to serve my own needs and those of the people with me. ³⁵ I showed you in all such matters that this is how we should work to help the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, as he put it, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”

³⁶ When he had said this, he knelt down with them all and prayed. ³⁷ There was great lamentation among them all, and they fell on Paul’s neck and kissed him. ³⁸ They were particularly sorry to hear the word he had spoken about never seeing his face again.

Then they brought him to the ship.

Disturbing prophecies

21 When we had left them behind and had set sail, we made a straight course to Cos, and went on the next day to Rhodes and from there to Patara. ² There we found a ship heading for Phoenicia, and we got on board and set sail. ³ We came in sight of Cyprus, passed it on our left side, sailed to Syria and arrived in Tyre, which was where the boat was going to unload its cargo. ⁴ We found some disciples and stayed there a week—and they told Paul, by the spirit, not to go to Jerusalem. ⁵ When our time there was up, we left and went on our way, with everyone, women and children included, coming with us out of the city. We knelt down on the seashore and prayed. ⁶ Then we said our farewells to one another. We got on the ship and they returned home.

⁷ The end of our voyage from Tyre saw us arrive at Ptolemais. There we greeted the Christians, and stayed a day with them. ⁸ On the next day we left and went on to Caesarea, and went into the house of Philip the evangelist, one of the Seven, and stayed with him. ⁹ He had four unmarried daughters who prophesied.

¹⁰ After we’d been there several days, Agabus the prophet arrived from Jerusalem. ¹¹ He came to us, took Paul’s girdle, and tied himself up with it, hand and foot.

“This is what the holy spirit says,” he declared. “The Judaeans in Jerusalem will tie up the man to whom this girdle belongs, just like this, and they will hand him over to the Gentiles.”

¹² When we heard that, we and the people of that place begged Paul not to go up to Jerusalem.

¹³ Then Paul responded.

“What are you doing with all this weeping,” he said, “breaking my heart in pieces? I am quite prepared not only to be tied up but to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.”

¹⁴ When we realized we couldn’t dissuade him, we gave up the attempt.

“May the Lord’s will be done,” was all we said.

Warding off the inevitable

¹⁵ After those days we made preparations to go up to Jerusalem. ¹⁶ Some of the disciples from Caesarea went with us, and took us to the house of Mnason, an elderly disciple from Cyprus. That was where we were going to be staying.

¹⁷ When we came to Jerusalem, the brothers and sisters welcomed us gladly. ¹⁸ On the next day Paul went in with us to see James, with all the elders present. ¹⁹ He greeted them and laid out before them everything which God had done through his ministry among the Gentiles, telling it all step by step. ²⁰ They praised God when they heard it.

“You see, brother,” they said, “that there are many thousands of Jews who have believed. They are all of them fiercely enthusiastic for the law. ²¹ But what they have heard about you is that you teach all the Jews who live among the nations to abandon Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children and not to keep the customs. ²² Where does this leave us? They will certainly hear that you have come. ²³ So do what we tell you: there are four men here who have taken a vow upon themselves. ²⁴ Join in with these men. Purify yourself along with them, and pay the expenses for them as they have their heads shaved. That way everyone will know that there is no truth in the accusations against you, but rather that you too are behaving as a law-observant Jew should. ²⁵ As for the Gentiles who have believed, we have written to them with our decision that they should keep themselves from what has been sacrificed to idols, from blood, from what is strangled, and from fornication.”

²⁶ So Paul took the men and, the next day, underwent the ritual of purification alongside them. He went into the Temple and made the declaration, stating when the days of purification would be completed and when the time would come for sacrifice to be offered for each of them.

Riot in the Temple

²⁷ When the seven days were completed, some Jews from Asia spotted Paul in the Temple. They gathered a crowd and grabbed him.

²⁸ “Men of Israel,” they yelled, “come and help us! This is the man who’s been teaching everybody everywhere against our people, our law, and this place! And now, what’s more, he’s brought some Greeks into the Temple, and he’s defiled this holy place!” ²⁹ (They had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian with Paul in the city, and they thought Paul had taken him into the Temple.)

³⁰ The whole city was stirred up, and people rushed together from all around. They seized Paul and dragged him outside the Temple, and the gates were shut at once. ³¹ As they were trying to kill him, word reached the tribune of the guard that all Jerusalem was in an uproar. ³² At once he took soldiers and centurions and ran down to them. When the crowd saw the tribune and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. ³³ Then the tribune came up, arrested him, ordered him to be bound with two chains, and asked who he was and what he had done. ³⁴ Some in the crowd said one thing, some said another. Since he couldn’t find out what was really going on because of the uproar, he gave orders for Paul to be brought into the barracks. ³⁵ When they got to the steps, the pressure of the crowd was so strong that the soldiers had to carry Paul. ³⁶ The great mob of people was following, and shouting, “Kill him! Kill him!”

Why not hear my story?

³⁷ As they were about to go into the barracks, Paul turned to the tribune.

“Am I allowed to say something to you?” he asked.

“Well!” replied the tribune. “So you know some Greek, do you? ³⁸ Aren’t you the Egyptian who raised a revolt some while back and led those four thousand ‘assassins’ into the desert?”

³⁹ “Actually,” replied Paul, “I’m a Jew! I’m from Tarsus in Cilicia. That’s not such a bad place to be a citizen. Please, please, let me speak to the people.”

⁴⁰ So he gave him permission. Paul stood on the steps and motioned with his hand to the people. When, eventually, there was silence, he spoke to them in Aramaic.

22 “My brothers and fathers,” he began, “hear me as I explain myself to you.”

² When they heard him speaking in Aramaic they became even quieter.

³ “I am a Jew,” he continued, “and I was born in Tarsus in Cilicia. I received my education here, in this city, and I studied at the feet of Gamaliel. I was trained in the strictest interpretations of our ancestral laws, and became zealous for God, just as all of you are today. ⁴ I persecuted this Way, right to the point of killing people, and I bound and handed over to prison both men and women— ⁵ as the high priest and all the elders can testify. I received letters from them to the Jews of Damascus, where I was going in order to find the heretics who were there, tie them up, and bring them to Jerusalem to face their just deserts.

⁶ “Just as I was on the way, and getting near to Damascus, suddenly a bright light shone from heaven all around me. It was about midday. ⁷ I fell down on the ground and I heard a voice, saying, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ ⁸ I answered, ‘Who are you, Master?’ And he said to me, ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, and you are persecuting me!’

⁹ “The people who were with me saw the light, but they didn’t hear the voice of the person speaking to me. ¹⁰ So I said, ‘What shall I do, Master?’ And the Lord said to me, ‘Get up and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all the things that have been arranged for you to do.’

¹¹ “So, as I couldn’t see because of the brightness of that light, the people with me led me by the hand, and I came to Damascus.”

Out of his own mouth

¹² “There was a man named Ananias,” Paul continued. “He was a devout, law-keeping Jew, and all the Jews living in Damascus would testify to the fact. ¹³ He came and stood beside me and said, ‘Brother Saul, receive your sight.’ In that very moment I could see, and I looked at him. ¹⁴ This is what he said. ‘The God of our ancestors chose you to know his will, to see the Righteous One, and to hear the word from his mouth. ¹⁵ This is because you are going to bear witness for him to all people, telling them what you have seen and heard. ¹⁶ Now, then, what are you going to do? Get up, be baptized and wash away your sins by calling on his name.’

¹⁷ “After I came back to Jerusalem, and was praying in the Temple, I fell into a trance, ¹⁸ and I saw him speaking to me. ‘Hurry up!’ he said. ‘Leave Jerusalem as quickly as possible! They won’t accept your testimony about me.’ ¹⁹ ‘But, Lord,’ I replied, ‘they themselves know that in all the synagogues I used to imprison and beat those who believe in you. ²⁰ And when they shed the blood of Stephen, your witness, I was myself standing there and giving my approval. I was looking after the cloaks of those who were killing him.’

²¹ “ ‘No,’ he said to me. ‘Go away from here! I’m sending you far away—to the Gentiles!’ ”

²² Up to this point the crowd listened to Paul. But now they began to shout.

“Away with him from the face of the earth!” they yelled. “Someone like that has no right to live!”

Roman citizenship comes in useful

²³ The crowd was shouting, tearing their clothes, and throwing dust in the air. ²⁴ The tribune gave orders for Paul to be brought into the barracks, and he told the guards to examine him by flogging, so that he could find out the reason for all the uproar against him.

²⁵ As they were tying Paul up ready for the whips, Paul spoke to the centurion who was standing beside him.

“Is it lawful,” he said, “to flog a Roman citizen without first finding him guilty?”

²⁶ When the centurion heard that, he went off to the tribune and spoke to him.

“What d’you think you’re doing?” he said. “This fellow’s a Roman citizen!”

²⁷ The tribune came and spoke to Paul.

“Tell me,” he said. “Are you a Roman citizen?”

“Yes,” replied Paul.

²⁸ “It cost me a lot of money to buy this citizenship,” said the tribune.

“Ah,” said Paul, “but it came to me by birth.”

²⁹ The people who were about to torture Paul stepped back quickly from him. As for the tribune, he was afraid, discovering that he was a Roman citizen and that he had had him tied up.

³⁰ On the next day, still wanting to get to the bottom of it all, and to find out what was being alleged by the Jews, he released Paul, and ordered the chief priests to come together, with the whole Sanhedrin. He brought Paul in and presented him to them.

Paul before the Sanhedrin

23 Paul looked hard at the Sanhedrin.

“My brothers,” he said. “I have conducted myself before God in a completely good conscience all my life up to this day.”

² Ananias, the high priest, ordered the bystanders to strike Paul on the mouth.

³ “God will strike you, you whitewashed wall!” said Paul to Ananias. “You are sitting to judge me according to the law, and yet you order me to be struck in violation of the law?”

⁴ “You are insulting the high priest?” asked the bystanders.

⁵ “My brothers,” replied Paul, “I didn’t know he was the high priest. Scripture says, of course, ‘You mustn’t speak evil of the ruler of your people.’ ”

⁶ Paul knew that some of the gathering were Sadducees, and the rest were Pharisees.

“My brothers,” he shouted to the Sanhedrin, “I am a Pharisee, the son of Pharisees. This trial is about the Hope, about the Resurrection of the Dead!”

⁷ At these words, an argument broke out between the Pharisees and Sadducees, and they were split among themselves. ⁸ (The Sadducees deny that there is any resurrection, or any intermediate state of “angel” or “spirit,” but the Pharisees affirm them both.) ⁹ There was quite an uproar, with some of the scribes from the Pharisees’ party standing up and arguing angrily, “We find nothing wrong in this man! What if a spirit spoke to him, or an angel for that matter?”

¹⁰ Faced with another great riot, the tribune was worried that Paul was going to be pulled in pieces between them. He ordered the guard to go down and snatch him out of the midst of them and bring him back up into the barracks.

¹¹ On the next night, the Lord stood by him.

“Cheer up!” he said. “You have given your testimony about me in Jerusalem. Now you have to do it in Rome.”

The oath and the plot

¹² The next morning, the Jews made a plot together. They swore an oath, binding themselves not to eat or drink until they had killed Paul. ¹³ There were more than forty of them who made this solemn vow with one another. ¹⁴ They went to the high priest and the elders.

“We have sworn a solemn and binding oath,” they said, “not to taste anything until we have killed Paul. ¹⁵ What you need to do is this: tell the tribune, with the Sanhedrin, to bring him down to you, as if you wanted to make a more careful examination of his case. And then, before he arrives, we’ll be ready to dispatch him.”

¹⁶ Paul’s nephew (his sister’s son) heard of the plot. He went off, entered the barracks, and told Paul about it. ¹⁷ Paul called one of the centurions.

“Take this young man to the tribune,” he said. “He’s got something to tell him.”

¹⁸ So he took him off and brought him to the tribune.

“Paul the prisoner called me and asked me to bring this young man to you,” he said. “Apparently he’s got something to tell you.”

¹⁹ So the tribune took the young man by the hand, and led him off into a private room.

“What is it you have to tell me?” he asked.

²⁰ “The Judaeans have agreed to ask you to bring Paul down to the Sanhedrin tomorrow,” he said. “It will look as if they’re wanting to make a more thorough investigation about him. ²¹ But don’t do what they want! There are more than forty men who are setting an ambush for him, and they’ve sworn a solemn oath not to eat or drink until they’ve killed him. They are ready right now, waiting for the word from you!”

²² So the tribune dismissed the lad.

“Don’t tell anyone at all that you’ve told me about this,” he said.

We have ways of keeping you safe

²³ So the tribune summoned two of the centurions.

“Get ready a squad of two hundred,” he said. “They’re going to Caesarea. Also take seventy horsemen and two hundred light-armed guards. They leave at nine o’clock tonight. ²⁴ Get horses ready for Paul to ride, and take him safely to Felix the governor.”

²⁵ He wrote a letter which went like this:

²⁶ “Claudius Lysias, to the most excellent governor Felix, greeting. ²⁷ This man was seized by the Jews, who were going to kill him. When I learned that he was a Roman citizen I went with the guard and rescued him. ²⁸ I wanted to know the charge on which they were accusing him, so I took him into their Sanhedrin. ²⁹ There I discovered that he was being accused in relation to disputes about their law, but that he was not being charged with anything for which he would deserve to die or to be imprisoned. ³⁰ I then received information that there was to be a plot against him. So I am sending him to you at once. I have told his accusers that they must inform you of their charges against him.”

³¹ So the soldiers did what they were told. They took Paul and brought him by night to Antipatris, ³² and the next day they allowed the horsemen to go on with him while they returned to barracks. ³³ The company arrived at Caesarea and handed over the letter to the governor, presenting Paul at the same time. ³⁴ Felix read the letter, and asked which jurisdiction Paul was from. He found out that he was from Cilicia.

³⁵ “I will hear your case,” he said, “when your accusers arrive.”

He ordered that he be kept under guard in Herod’s Praetorium.

Bring on the barristers

24 After five days, Ananias the high priest came down to Caesarea with some of the elders, and with a barrister named Tertullus. They told the governor what they had against Paul. ² Paul was summoned, and Tertullus began his speech of accusation.

“Most excellent Felix! We are enjoying great peace because of you! Through your wise foresight and planning things have greatly improved for this people. ³ We welcome it in every way, in every place, and with every feeling of gratitude. ⁴ But, so as not to keep you waiting any longer, I beg you, of your forbearance, to listen to us briefly.

⁵ “We find this fellow to be a public nuisance. He stirs up civil strife among all the Jews, all over the world. He is a ringleader in the sect of the Nazoreans. ⁶ He even tried to defile the Temple! But we caught him. ⁸ If you examine him yourself you will be able to find out about all these things of which we’re accusing him.”

⁹ The Jews added their voices to this speech, agreeing that it was just as it had been said.

A defense of the Hope

¹⁰ The governor motioned to Paul to speak.

“I understand that you have been governor of this nation for several years,” he began, “and therefore I am all the more pleased to make my defense before you. ¹¹ You will be able to discover that it is not more than twelve days since I came up to worship at Jerusalem. ¹² They didn’t find me disputing with anybody in the Temple; nor was I stirring up a crowd, either in the synagogues or elsewhere in the city. ¹³ They can provide no proof of any of the charges they are now bringing against me.

¹⁴ “But this much I will confess to you: it is true that I do worship the God of my ancestors according to the Way which they call a ‘sect.’ I believe everything which is written in the law and the prophets, ¹⁵ and I hold to the hope in God, for which they also long, that there will be a resurrection of the righteous and the unrighteous. ¹⁶ For that reason I make it my settled aim always to have a clear conscience before God and all people.

¹⁷ “For several years I have been collecting alms and offerings to bring to my nation. ¹⁸ That was the business I was engaged in when they found me purified in the Temple, without any crowds and without any riot. ¹⁹ There were some Jews from Asia there; they are the ones who should appear before you and bring any accusations against me that they may have. ²⁰ Or let these people themselves say what wrong they found in me when I stood before the Sanhedrin— ²¹ unless it is about this one thing, which I shouted out as I was standing among them: ‘It’s because of the resurrection of the dead that I am being judged before you today.’ ”

Felix calms (and slows) things down

²² Felix was quite well informed about the Way. He adjourned the hearing.

“When Lysias the tribune comes down,” he said, “then I will make my decision about your business.”

²³ He told the centurion to keep Paul under guard, to allow him some freedom, and not to stop any of his companions from looking after him.

²⁴ After some days, Felix came with Drusilla his wife, who was Jewish. They sent for Paul and listened to him speaking about faith in the Messiah Jesus. ²⁵ As he talked about justice, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix became afraid.

“That’s quite enough for now,” he said. “You can go. When I get a good opportunity I’ll call for you again another time.”

²⁶ At the same time he was hoping that Paul would give him money, and so he sent for him frequently and talked with him. ²⁷ After two years Felix handed over the reins of office to Porcius Festus. He wanted to do the Jews a favor, and so he left Paul in prison.

To Caesar you shall go

25 So Festus arrived in the province, and after three days he went up from Caesarea to Jerusalem. ² The high priests and the leading men of the Jews appeared before him, laying charges against Paul, and putting a request to him. ³ They wanted him to do a special favor for them and against Paul, by sending for him to be brought up to Jerusalem. They were making a plan to kill him on the way. ⁴ But Festus answered that he was keeping Paul at Caesarea, and that he himself would shortly be going back there.

⁵ “So,” he said, “your officials should come down with me. They can put any accusations of wrongdoing they may have against the man.”

⁶ He stayed with them for a few days (about eight or ten) and then went down to Caesarea. On the next day he took his seat on the tribunal and ordered Paul to be brought to him. ⁷ When he appeared, the Jews who had come down from Jerusalem surrounded him and hurled many serious accusations at him, which they were not able to substantiate. ⁸ Paul made his response: “I have offended neither against the Jews’ law, nor against the Temple, nor against Caesar.”

⁹ Festus, however, wanted to do a favor to the Jews. “Tell me,” he said to Paul in reply, “how would you like to go up to Jerusalem and be tried by me there about these things?”

¹⁰ “I am standing before Caesar’s tribunal,” said Paul, “which is where I ought to be tried. I have done no wrong to the Jews, as you well know. ¹¹ If I have committed any wrong, or if I have done something which means I deserve to die, I’m not trying to escape death. But if I haven’t done any of the things they are accusing me of, nobody can hand me over to them. I appeal to Caesar.”

¹² Festus consulted with his advisers.

“You have appealed to Caesar,” he said, “and to Caesar you shall go.”

Agrippa and Bernice

¹³ After some days King Agrippa came to Caesarea, with Bernice, to greet Festus. ¹⁴ They spent several days there, and during that time Festus put to the king the whole matter of Paul and the case against him.

“I have a man here,” he said, “who was left by Felix as a prisoner. ¹⁵ When I was up in Jerusalem, the chief priests and the Jewish elders came before me and asked me to pass sentence on him. ¹⁶ My response was that it is not our Roman custom to hand anyone over until the accused has had a chance to look his accusers in the face and make a defense against the charges. ¹⁷ So they came down here, and I didn’t postpone the business, but sat in court the next day and commanded the man to be brought. ¹⁸ His accusers stood there and brought charges—but not of the sort of wrongdoing I had been expecting. ¹⁹ It turned out to have to do with various wranglings concerning their own religion, and about some dead man called Jesus whom Paul asserted was alive. ²⁰ I simply didn’t know what to do about all this dispute, and so I asked him if he would like to go up to Jerusalem and be judged there about these things. ²¹ But Paul then appealed for his case to be sent up to His Majesty! So I gave the order that he should be kept under guard until I can send him to Caesar.”

²² “I should like to hear this man for myself,” said Agrippa to Festus.

“Very well,” said Festus. “You shall do so tomorrow.”

²³ On the next day, Agrippa and Bernice came with great ceremony, and entered the audience chamber. With them came the tribunes and the leading men of the city. Festus gave the order, and Paul was brought in.

²⁴ “King Agrippa,” said Festus, “and all of you assembled here, you see this man. The whole multitude of the Jews appealed to me about him, both in Jerusalem and here. They shouted that it wasn’t right to let him live. ²⁵ But I found that he had done nothing to deserve death, and since he then himself appealed to His Majesty I decided to send him. ²⁶ I don’t have anything definite to write to our Lord and Master about him, and so I’ve brought him here to you, and particularly before you, King Agrippa, so that I may know what to write once we have had a judicial hearing. ²⁷ There seems no sense to me in sending a prisoner without giving some indication of the charges against him.”

Paul before Agrippa

26 Agrippa addressed Paul.

“You are permitted,” he said, “to speak for yourself.”

Paul stretched out his hand and began his defense.

² “I consider myself blessed, King Agrippa,” he said, “to have the chance to speak before you today in my defense concerning all the things of which the Jews have charged me, ³ in particular because I know you are an expert on all matters of Jewish customs and disputes. I beg you, therefore, to give me a generous hearing.

⁴ “All the Jews know my manner of life. I lived from my earliest days among my own people and in Jerusalem. ⁵ They have known already for a long time (if they are willing to testify!) that I lived as a Pharisee, according to the strictest sect of our religion. ⁶ And now I stand accused because of the hope of the promise made by God to our ancestors, ⁷ the hope for which our twelve tribes wait with earnest longing in their worship night and day. And it is this hope, O king, for which I am now accused by the Jews! ⁸ Why should any of you judge it unbelievable that God would raise the dead?

⁹ “I thought I was under obligation to do many things against the name of Jesus of Nazareth, ¹⁰ and that is what I did in Jerusalem. I received authority from the chief priests to shut up many of God’s people in prison, and when they were condemned to death I cast my vote against them. ¹¹ I punished them many times in all the synagogues, and forced many of them to blaspheme. I became more and more furious against them, and even pursued them to cities in other lands.”

Paul’s conversion (one more time)

¹² “While I was busy on this work,” Paul continued, “I was traveling to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests. ¹³ Around midday, while I was on the road, O king, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the light of the sun, and shining all around me and my companions on the road. ¹⁴ We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice speaking to me in Aramaic.

“ ‘Saul, Saul,’ he said, ‘why are you persecuting me? It’s hard for you, this kicking against the goads.’

¹⁵ “ ‘Who are you, Lord?’ I said.

“ ‘I am Jesus,’ said the Lord, ‘and you are persecuting me. ¹⁶ But get up and stand on your feet. I’m going to tell you why I have appeared to you. I am going to establish you as a servant, as a witness both of the things you have already seen and of the occasions I will appear to you in the future. ¹⁷ I will rescue you from the people, and from the nations to whom I am going to send you ¹⁸ so that you can open their eyes to enable them to turn from darkness to light, and from the power of the satan to God—so that they can have forgiveness of sins, and an inheritance among those who are made holy, by their faith in me.’

¹⁹ “So then, King Agrippa, I didn’t disobey this vision from heaven. ²⁰ I preached that people should repent, and turn to God, and do the works that demonstrate repentance. I preached it first to those in Damascus, then also in Jerusalem, in the whole countryside of Judaea, and among the nations. ²¹ That is the reason the Jews seized me in the Temple and tried to slaughter me. ²² But I have had help from God, right up to this very day. And so I stand here to bear witness, to small and great alike, of nothing except what the prophets, and Moses too, said would happen: ²³ namely, that the Messiah would suffer, that he would be the first to rise from the dead, and that he would proclaim light to the people and to the nations.”

“Paul, you’re mad!”

²⁴ As Paul was making his defense in this way, Festus roared out at the top of his voice, “Paul, you’re mad! All this learning of yours has driven you crazy!”

²⁵ “I’m not mad, most excellent Festus,” responded Paul. “On the contrary, what I say is full of truth and good sense. ²⁶ The king knows about these things, and it is to him that I am speaking so boldly. I cannot believe that any of this has escaped his notice. After all, these things didn’t happen in a corner. ²⁷ Do you believe the prophets, King Agrippa? I know you believe them.”

²⁸ “You reckon you’re going to make me a Christian, then,” said Agrippa to Paul, “and pretty quick, too, by the sound of it!”

²⁹ “Whether quick or slow,” replied Paul, “I pray to God that not only you but also all who hear me today will become just as I am—apart, of course, from these chains.”

³⁰ The king, the governor and Bernice, and those sitting with them, got up. ³¹ As they were going away, they talked to one another about it.

“This man,” they were saying, “has done nothing to deserve death or chains.”

³² And Agrippa commented to Festus, “This man could have been set free, if only he hadn’t gone and appealed to Caesar.”

All at sea

27 When it was decided that we should sail to Italy, they handed Paul over, along with some other prisoners, to a centurion named Julius, who belonged to the Imperial Cohort. ² They got into a ship from Adramyttium, which was intending to sail to various places along the coast of Asia. So off we set. Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica, came too.

³ Next day we put in at Sidon. Julius was kind to Paul, and allowed him to go to his friends to be cared for. ⁴ When we left Sidon, we sailed under the lee of Cyprus, because the winds were against us, ⁵ and then crossed the sea off the coast of Cilicia and Pamphylia, arriving at Myra in Lycia. ⁶ There the centurion found a ship going from Alexandria to Italy, and we got on board.

⁷ After a few days we were making very heavy weather of it, and only got to the shore at Cnidus. Since the wind was not helping us, we sailed under the lee of Crete, off the coast from Salmone. ⁸ Getting past that point with some difficulty, we came to a place called “Fair Havens,” not far from the town of Lasea.

⁹ Quite a bit of time had now elapsed, and sailing was becoming dangerous. The Fast had already come and gone. Paul gave his advice.

¹⁰ “Men,” he said, “I can see we’re going to have trouble on this voyage. It’s going to be dangerous. We may well sustain heavy losses both to the cargo and to the ship, not to mention to human life.”

¹¹ But the centurion put his faith in the helmsman and the ship-owner rather than in what Paul had said. ¹² Unfortunately, the harbor was not suitable for wintering, so most people were in favor of going on from there to see if they could get to Phoenix, a Cretan harbor which faces both south-west and north-west. They would then be able to spend the winter there.

The storm and the angel

¹³ Well, a moderate southerly breeze sprang up, and they thought they had the result they wanted. So they lifted the anchor and sailed along, hugging the shore of Crete. ¹⁴ But before long a great typhoon—they call it “Eurakylon,” the Northeaster—swept down from Crete, ¹⁵ and the ship was caught up by it. Since the ship couldn’t turn and face into the wind, it had to give way and we were carried along.

¹⁶ When we came in behind an island called Cauda, we were just able to get the ship’s boat under control. ¹⁷ They pulled it up, and did what was necessary to undergird the ship. Then, because they were afraid that we would crash into the Syrtis sandbanks, they lowered the sea-anchor and allowed the ship to be driven along. ¹⁸ The storm was so severe that on the next day they began to throw cargo overboard, ¹⁹ and on the third day they threw the ship’s tackle overboard as well, with their own hands. ²⁰ We then went for a good many days without seeing either the sun or the stars, with a major storm raging. All hope of safety was finally abandoned.

²¹ We had gone without food a long time. Then Paul stood up in the middle of them all.

“It does seem to me, my good people,” he said, “that you should have taken my advice not to leave Crete. We could have managed without this damage and loss. ²² But now I want to tell you: take heart! No lives will be lost—only the ship. ²³ This last night, you see, an angel of the God to whom I belong, and whom I worship, stood beside me. ²⁴ ‘Don’t be afraid, Paul,’ he said. ‘You must appear before Caesar, and let me tell you this: God has granted you all your traveling companions.’ ²⁵ So take heart, my friends. I believe God, that it will be as he said to me. ²⁶ We must, however, be cast up on some island or other.”

²⁷ On the fourteenth night we were being carried across the sea of Adria when, around the middle of the night, the sailors reckoned that we were getting near some land. ²⁸ They took soundings and found twenty fathoms; then, a little bit further, they took soundings again and found fifteen fathoms. ²⁹ They were afraid that we might crash into a rocky place, so they let down four anchors from the stern and prayed for day to come. ³⁰ The sailors wanted to escape from the ship, and let down the boat into the sea under the pretense of going to put out anchors from the bow. ³¹ But Paul spoke to the centurion and the soldiers.

“If these men don’t stay in the ship,” he said, “there is no chance of safety.”

³² Then the soldiers cut the ropes of the boat, and let it fall away.

Shipwreck

³³ When it was nearly daytime, Paul urged all of them to eat something.

“It’s now all of fourteen days,” he said, “that you’ve been hanging on without food, not eating a thing. ³⁴ So let me encourage you to have something to eat. This will help you get rescued. No hair of any of your heads will be lost.”

³⁵ So saying, he took some bread, gave thanks to God in front of them all, broke the bread and ate it. ³⁶ Then all of them cheered up and took some food. ³⁷ The whole company on board was two hundred and seventy-six. ³⁸ When we had eaten enough food, they threw the grain overboard to lighten the ship.

³⁹ When day came, they didn’t recognize the land. It appeared to have a bay with a sandy shore, and that was where they hoped, if possible, to beach the ship. ⁴⁰ They let the anchors drop away into the sea, and at the same time slackened the ropes on the rudders, hoisted the foresail, and headed for the beach. ⁴¹ But they crashed into a reef and ran the ship aground. The prow stuck fast and wouldn’t budge, while the strong waves were smashing the stern to bits. ⁴² The soldiers planned to kill the prisoners so that none of them would swim away and escape. ⁴³ But the centurion wanted to rescue Paul, and refused permission for them to carry out their intention. Instead, he ordered all who were able to swim to leap overboard first and head for land, ⁴⁴ while the rest were to come after, some on boards and some on bits and pieces of the ship. And so everyone ended up safely on land.

The snake on Malta

28 When we reached safety, we discovered that the island was called Malta. ² The local inhabitants treated us with unusual kindness: they set to and built a fire for us all, since it was cold and had started to rain. ³ Paul had collected quite a bundle of brushwood, and was putting it on the fire, when a viper, escaping the heat, fastened onto his hand. ⁴ The natives saw the animal clinging to his hand.

“Aha!” they said to one another. “This man must be a murderer! He’s been rescued from the sea, but Justice hasn’t allowed him to live.”

⁵ Paul, however, shook off the snake into the fire and suffered no harm. ⁶ They kept watching him to see if he would swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But when they had waited and watched for quite some time, and nothing untoward had happened to him, they changed their minds.

“He must be a god,” they said.

⁷ Publius, the leading man of the island, owned lands in the region where we were. He welcomed us, and entertained us in a most friendly fashion for three days. ⁸ Publius’ father was lying sick in bed with a fever and with dysentery. Paul went in to see him and prayed; then he laid his hands on him and cured him. ⁹ At this, everyone else on the island who was sick came and was cured. ¹⁰ They gave us many honors, and when we were getting ready to sail away they gave us everything we needed.

To Rome at last

¹¹ After three months we set sail on a ship that had been spending the winter on the island. It was from Alexandria, and had the insignia of the Heavenly Twins. ¹² We arrived at Syracuse, and stayed three days. ¹³ From there we raised anchor and sailed across to Rhegium. After one day there, a south wind arose, and on the second day we arrived at Puteoli, ¹⁴ where we found Christians, who encouraged us to stay with them for seven days.

And so we came to Rome. ¹⁵ Christians from there, hearing about us, came to meet us as far as Appian Forum and Three Taverns. When Paul saw them, he thanked God and took heart.

¹⁶ When we arrived in Rome, Paul was allowed to lodge privately. He had a soldier to guard him.