Acts 26; Acts 27; Acts 28

1 Agrippa said to Paul, "You have permission to speak on your own behalf." Paul stretched out his hand and defended himself as follows:

2 "King Agrippa! I consider myself fortunate that today I am to defend myself before you from all the things these Jews accuse me of,

3 particularly since you know so well all the Jewish customs and disputes. I ask you, then, to listen to me with patience.

4 "All the Jews know how I have lived ever since I was young. They know how I have spent my whole life, at first in my own country and then in Jerusalem.

5 They have always known, if they are willing to testify, that from the very first I have lived as a member of the strictest party of our religion, the Pharisees.

6 And now I stand here to be tried because of the hope I have in the promise that God made to our ancestors -

7 the very thing that the twelve tribes of our people hope to receive, as they worship God day and night. And it is because of this hope, Your Majesty, that I am being accused by these Jews!

8 Why do you who are here find it impossible to believe that God raises the dead?

9 "I myself thought that I should do everything I could against the cause of Jesus of Nazareth.

10 That is what I did in Jerusalem. I received authority from the chief priests and put many of God's people in prison; and when they were sentenced to death, I also voted against them.

11 Many times I had them punished in the synagogues and tried to make them deny their faith. I was so furious with them that I even went to foreign cities to persecute them.

12 "It was for this purpose that I went to Damascus with authority and orders from the chief priests.

13 It was on the road at midday, Your Majesty, that I saw a light much brighter than the sun, coming from the sky and shining around me and the men traveling with me.

14 All of us fell to the ground, and I heard a voice say to me in Hebrew, "Saul, Saul! Why are you persecuting me? You are hurting yourself by hitting back, like an ox kicking against its owner's stick.'

15 "Who are you, Lord?' I asked. And the Lord answered, "I am Jesus, whom you persecute.

16 But get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as my servant. You are to tell others what you have seen of me today and what I will show you in the future.

17 I will rescue you from the people of Israel and from the Gentiles to whom I will send you.

18 You are to open their eyes and turn them from the darkness to the light and from the power of Satan to God, so that through their faith in me they will have their sins forgiven and receive their place among God's chosen people.'

19 "And so, King Agrippa, I did not disobey the vision I had from heaven.

20 First in Damascus and in Jerusalem and then in the whole country of Israel and among the Gentiles, I preached that they must repent of their sins and turn to God and do the things that would show they had repented.

21 It was for this reason that these Jews seized me while I was in the Temple, and they tried to kill me.

22 But to this very day I have been helped by God, and so I stand here giving my witness to all, to small and great alike. What I say is the very same thing which the prophets and Moses said was going to happen:

23 that the Messiah must suffer and be the first one to rise from death, to announce the light of salvation to the Jews and to the Gentiles."

24 As Paul defended himself in this way, Festus shouted at him, "You are mad, Paul! Your great learning is driving you mad!"

25 Paul answered, "I am not mad, Your Excellency! I am speaking the sober truth.

26 King Agrippa! I can speak to you with all boldness, because you know about these things. I am sure that you have taken notice of every one of them, for this thing has not happened hidden away in a corner.

27 King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you do!"

28 Agrippa said to Paul, "In this short time do you think you will make me a Christian?"

29 "Whether a short time or a long time," Paul answered, "my prayer to God is that you and all the rest of you who are listening to me today might become what I am - except, of course, for these chains!"

30 Then the king, the governor, Bernice, and all the others got up,

31 and after leaving they said to each other, "This man has not done anything for which he should die or be put in prison."

32 And Agrippa said to Festus, "This man could have been released if he had not appealed to the Emperor."

1 When it was decided that we should sail to Italy, they handed Paul and some other prisoners over to Julius, an officer in the Roman army regiment called "The Emperor's Regiment."

2 We went aboard a ship from Adramyttium, which was ready to leave for the seaports of the province of Asia, and we sailed away. Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica, was with us.

3 The next day we arrived at Sidon. Julius was kind to Paul and allowed him to go and see his friends, to be given what he needed.

4 We went on from there, and because the winds were blowing against us, we sailed on the sheltered side of the island of Cyprus.

5 We crossed over the sea off Cilicia and Pamphylia and came to Myra in Lycia.

6 There the officer found a ship from Alexandria that was going to sail for Italy, so he put us aboard.

7 We sailed slowly for several days and with great difficulty finally arrived off the town of Cnidus. The wind would not let us go any farther in that direction, so we sailed down the sheltered side of the island of Crete, passing by Cape Salmone.

8 We kept close to the coast and with great difficulty came to a place called Safe Harbors, not far from the town of Lasea.

9 We spent a long time there, until it became dangerous to continue the voyage, for by now the Day of Atonement was already past. So Paul gave them this advice:

10 "Men, I see that our voyage from here on will be dangerous; there will be great damage to the cargo and to the ship, and loss of life as well."

11 But the army officer was convinced by what the captain and the owner of the ship said, and not by what Paul said.

12 The harbor was not a good one to spend the winter in; so almost everyone was in favor of putting out to sea and trying to reach Phoenix, if possible, in order to spend the winter there. Phoenix is a harbor in Crete that faces southwest and northwest.

13 A soft wind from the south began to blow, and the men thought that they could carry out their plan, so they pulled up the anchor and sailed as close as possible along the coast of Crete.

14 But soon a very strong wind - the one called "Northeaster" - blew down from the island.

15 It hit the ship, and since it was impossible to keep the ship headed into the wind, we gave up trying and let it be carried along by the wind.

16 We got some shelter when we passed to the south of the little island of Cauda. There, with some difficulty we managed to make the ship's boat secure.

17 They pulled it aboard and then fastened some ropes tight around the ship. They were afraid that they might run into the sandbanks off the coast of Libya, so they lowered the sail and let the ship be carried by the wind.

18 The violent storm continued, so on the next day they began to throw some of the ship's cargo overboard,

19 and on the following day they threw part of the ship's equipment overboard.

20 For many days we could not see the sun or the stars, and the wind kept on blowing very hard. We finally gave up all hope of being saved.

21 After everyone had gone a long time without food, Paul stood before them and said, "You should have listened to me and not have sailed from Crete; then we would have avoided all this damage and loss.

22 But now I beg you, take courage! Not one of you will lose your life; only the ship will be lost.

23 For last night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship came to me

24 and said, "Don't be afraid, Paul! You must stand before the Emperor. And God in his goodness to you has spared the lives of all those who are sailing with you.'

25 So take courage, men! For I trust in God that it will be just as I was told.

26 But we will be driven ashore on some island."

27 It was the fourteenth night, and we were being driven in the Mediterranean by the storm. About midnight the sailors suspected that we were getting close to land.

28 So they dropped a line with a weight tied to it and found that the water was one hundred and twenty feet deep; a little later they did the same and found that it was ninety feet deep.

29 They were afraid that the ship would go on the rocks, so they lowered four anchors from the back of the ship and prayed for daylight.

30 Then the sailors tried to escape from the ship; they lowered the boat into the water and pretended that they were going to put out some anchors from the front of the ship.

31 But Paul said to the army officer and soldiers, "If the sailors don't stay on board, you have no hope of being saved."

32 So the soldiers cut the ropes that held the boat and let it go.

33 Just before dawn, Paul begged them all to eat some food: "You have been waiting for fourteen days now, and all this time you have not eaten a thing.

34 I beg you, then, eat some food; you need it in order to survive. Not even a hair of your heads will be lost."

35 After saying this, Paul took some bread, gave thanks to God before them all, broke it, and began to eat.

36 They took courage, and every one of them also ate some food.

37 There was a total of 276 of us on board.

38 After everyone had eaten enough, they lightened the ship by throwing all the wheat into the sea.

39 When day came, the sailors did not recognize the coast, but they noticed a bay with a beach and decided that, if possible, they would run the ship aground there.

40 So they cut off the anchors and let them sink in the sea, and at the same time they untied the ropes that held the steering oars. Then they raised the sail at the front of the ship so that the wind would blow the ship forward, and we headed for shore.

41 But the ship hit a sandbank and went aground; the front part of the ship got stuck and could not move, while the back part was being broken to pieces by the violence of the waves.

42 The soldiers made a plan to kill all the prisoners, in order to keep them from swimming ashore and escaping.

43 But the army officer wanted to save Paul, so he stopped them from doing this. Instead, he ordered everyone who could swim to jump overboard first and swim ashore;

44 the rest were to follow, holding on to the planks or to some broken pieces of the ship. And this was how we all got safely ashore.

1 When we were safely ashore, we learned that the island was called Malta.

2 The natives there were very friendly to us. It had started to rain and was cold, so they built a fire and made us all welcome.

3 Paul gathered up a bundle of sticks and was putting them on the fire when a snake came out on account of the heat and fastened itself to his hand.

4 The natives saw the snake hanging on Paul's hand and said to one another, "This man must be a murderer, but Fate will not let him live, even though he escaped from the sea."

5 But Paul shook the snake off into the fire without being harmed at all.

6 They were waiting for him to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But after waiting for a long time and not seeing anything unusual happening to him, they changed their minds and said, "He is a god!"

7 Not far from that place were some fields that belonged to Publius, the chief of the island. He welcomed us kindly and for three days we were his guests.

8 Publius' father was in bed, sick with fever and dysentery. Paul went into his room, prayed, placed his hands on him, and healed him.

9 When this happened, all the other sick people on the island came and were healed.

10 They gave us many gifts, and when we sailed, they put on board what we needed for the voyage.

11 After three months we sailed away on a ship from Alexandria, called "The Twin Gods," which had spent the winter in the island.

12 We arrived in the city of Syracuse and stayed there for three days.

13 From there we sailed on and arrived in the city of Rhegium. The next day a wind began to blow from the south, and in two days we came to the town of Puteoli.

14 We found some believers there who asked us to stay with them a week. And so we came to Rome.

15 The believers in Rome heard about us and came as far as the towns of Market of Appius and Three Inns to meet us. When Paul saw them, he thanked God and was greatly encouraged.

16 When we arrived in Rome, Paul was allowed to live by himself with a soldier guarding him.

17 After three days Paul called the local Jewish leaders to a meeting. When they had gathered, he said to them, "My fellow Israelites, even though I did nothing against our people or the customs that we received from our ancestors, I was made a prisoner in Jerusalem and handed over to the Romans.

18 After questioning me, the Romans wanted to release me, because they found that I had done nothing for which I deserved to die.

19 But when the Jews opposed this, I was forced to appeal to the Emperor, even though I had no accusation to make against my own people.

20 That is why I asked to see you and talk with you. As a matter of fact, I am bound in chains like this for the sake of him for whom the people of Israel hope."

21 They said to him, "We have not received any letters from Judea about you, nor have any of our people come from there with any news or anything bad to say about you.

22 But we would like to hear your ideas, because we know that everywhere people speak against this party to which you belong."

23 So they set a date with Paul, and a large number of them came that day to the place where Paul was staying. From morning till night he explained to them his message about the Kingdom of God, and he tried to convince them about Jesus by quoting from the Law of Moses and the writings of the prophets.

24 Some of them were convinced by his words, but others would not believe.

25 So they left, disagreeing among themselves, after Paul had said this one thing: "How well the Holy Spirit spoke through the prophet Isaiah to your ancestors!

26 For he said, "Go and say to this people: You will listen and listen, but not understand; you will look and look, but not see,

27 because this people's minds are dull, and they have stopped up their ears and closed their eyes. Otherwise, their eyes would see, their ears would hear, their minds would understand, and they would turn to me, says God, and I would heal them.' "

28 And Paul concluded: "You are to know, then, that God's message of salvation has been sent to the Gentiles. They will listen!"

30 For two years Paul lived in a place he rented for himself, and there he welcomed all who came to see him.

31 He preached about the Kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ, speaking with all boldness and freedom.