Acts 20:5–28:16

⁵They went ahead and waited for us in Troas. ⁶We sailed from Philippi after the Festival of Unleavened Bread, and five days later we joined them in Troas, where we spent a week.

Paul’s Last Visit to Troas

⁷On Saturday^e evening we gathered together for the fellowship meal. Paul spoke to the people and kept on speaking until midnight, since he was going to leave the next day. ⁸Many lamps were burning in the upstairs room where we were meeting. ⁹A young man named Eutychus was sitting in the window, and as Paul kept on talking, Eutychus got sleepier and sleepier, until he finally went sound asleep and fell from the third storey to the ground. When they picked him up, he was dead. ¹⁰But Paul went down and threw himself on him and hugged him. “Don’t worry,” he said, “he is still alive!” ¹¹Then he went back upstairs, broke bread, and ate. After talking with them for a long time, even until sunrise, Paul left. ¹²They took the young man home alive and were greatly comforted.

From Troas to Miletus

¹³We went on ahead to the ship and sailed off to Assos, where we were going to take Paul aboard. He had told us to do this, because he was going there by land. ¹⁴When he met us in Assos, we took him aboard and went on to Mitylene. ¹⁵We sailed from there and arrived off Chios the next day. A day later we came to Samos, and the following day we reached Miletus. ¹⁶Paul had decided to sail on past Ephesus, so as not to lose any time in the province of Asia. He was in a hurry to arrive in Jerusalem by the day of Pentecost, if at all possible.

Paul’s Farewell Speech to the Elders of Ephesus

¹⁷From Miletus Paul sent a message to Ephesus, asking the elders of the church to meet him. ¹⁸When they arrived, he said to them, “You know how I spent the whole time I was with you, from the first day I arrived in the province of Asia. ¹⁹With all humility and many tears I did my work as the Lord’s servant during the hard times that came to me because of the plots of some Jews. ²⁰You know that I did not hold back anything that would be of help to you as I preached and taught in public and in your homes. ²¹To Jews and Gentiles alike I gave solemn warning that they should turn from their sins to God and believe in our Lord Jesus. ²²And now, in obedience to the Holy Spirit I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. ²³I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit has warned me that prison and troubles wait for me. ^24*But I reckon my own life to be worth nothing to me; I only want to complete my mission and finish the work that the Lord Jesus gave me to do, which is to declare the Good News about the grace of God.

²⁵“I have gone about among all of you, preaching the Kingdom of God. And now I know that none of you will ever see me again. ²⁶So I solemnly declare to you this very day: if any of you should be lost, I am not responsible. ²⁷For I have not held back from announcing to you the whole purpose of God. ²⁸So keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock which the Holy Spirit has placed in your care. Be shepherds of the church of God,^f which he made his own through the blood of his Son.^{g 29}I know that after I leave, fierce wolves will come among you, and they will not spare the flock. ³⁰The time will come when some men from your own group will tell lies to lead the believers away after them. ³¹Watch, then, and remember that with many tears, day and night, I taught every one of you for three years.

³²“And now I commend you to the care of God and to the message of his grace, which is able to build you up and give you the blessings God has for all his people. ³³I have not wanted anyone’s silver or gold or clothing. ³⁴You yourselves know that I have worked with these hands of mine to provide everything that my companions and I have needed. ³⁵I have shown you in all things that by working hard in this way we must help the weak, remembering the words that the Lord Jesus himself said, ‘There is more happiness in giving than in receiving.’ ”

³⁶When Paul finished, he knelt down with them and prayed. ³⁷They were all crying as they hugged him and kissed him goodbye. ³⁸They were especially sad because he had said that they would never see him again. And so they went with him to the ship.

Paul Goes to Jerusalem

21We said goodbye to them and left. After sailing straight across, we came to Cos; the next day we reached Rhodes, and from there we went on to Patara. ²There we found a ship that was going to Phoenicia, so we went aboard and sailed away. ³We came to where we could see Cyprus, and then sailed south of it on to Syria. We went ashore at Tyre, where the ship was going to unload its cargo. ⁴There we found some believers and stayed with them a week. By the power of the Spirit they told Paul not to go to Jerusalem. ⁵But when our time with them was over, we left and went on our way. All of them, together with their wives and children, went with us out of the city to the beach, where we all knelt and prayed. ⁶Then we said goodbye to one another, and we went on board the ship while they went back home.

⁷We continued our voyage, sailing from Tyre to Ptolemais, where we greeted the believers and stayed with them for a day. ^8*On the following day we left and arrived in Caesarea. There we stayed at the house of Philip the evangelist, one of the seven men who had been chosen as helpers in Jerusalem. ⁹He had four unmarried daughters who proclaimed God’s message. ^10*We had been there for several days when a prophet named Agabus arrived from Judea. ¹¹He came to us, took Paul’s belt, tied up his own feet and hands with it, and said, “This is what the Holy Spirit says: The owner of this belt will be tied up in this way by the Jews in Jerusalem, and they will hand him over to the Gentiles.”

¹²When we heard this, we and the others there begged Paul not to go to Jerusalem. ¹³But he answered, “What are you doing, crying like this and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be tied up in Jerusalem but even to die there for the sake of the Lord Jesus.”

¹⁴We could not convince him, so we gave up and said, “May the Lord’s will be done.”

¹⁵After spending some time there, we got our things ready and left for Jerusalem. ¹⁶Some of the disciples from Caesarea also went with us and took us to the house of the man we were going to stay with—^h Mnason, from Cyprus, who had been a believer since the early days.

Paul Visits James

¹⁷When we arrived in Jerusalem, the believers welcomed us warmly. ¹⁸The next day Paul went with us to see James; and all the church elders were present. ¹⁹Paul greeted them and gave a complete report of everything that God had done among the Gentiles through his work. ²⁰After hearing him, they all praised God. Then they said, “Brother Paul, you can see how many thousands of Jews have become believers, and how devoted they all are to the Law. ²¹They have been told that you have been teaching all the Jews who live in Gentile countries to abandon the Law of Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or follow the Jewish customs. ²²They are sure to hear that you have arrived. What should be done, then? ^23*This is what we want you to do. There are four men here who have taken a vow. ^24*Go along with them and join them in the ceremony of purification and pay their expenses; then they will be able to shave their heads.ⁱ In this way everyone will know that there is no truth in any of the things that they have been told about you, but that you yourself live in accordance with the Law of Moses. ^25*But as for the Gentiles who have become believers, we have sent them a letter telling them we decided that they must not eat any food that has been offered to idols, or any blood, or any animal that has been strangled, and that they must keep themselves from sexual immorality.”

²⁶So Paul took the men and the next day performed the ceremony of purification with them. Then he went into the Temple and gave notice of how many days it would be until the end of the period of purification, when a sacrifice would be offered for each one of them.

Paul is Arrested in the Temple

²⁷But just when the seven days were about to come to an end, some Jews from the province of Asia saw Paul in the Temple. They stirred up the whole crowd and seized Paul. ²⁸“Men of Israel!” they shouted. “Help! This is the man who goes everywhere teaching everyone against the people of Israel, the Law of Moses, and this Temple. And now he has even brought some Gentiles into the Temple and defiled this holy place!” ^29*(They said this because they had seen Trophimus from Ephesus with Paul in the city, and they thought that Paul had taken him into the Temple.)

³⁰Confusion spread through the whole city, and the people all ran together, seized Paul, and dragged him out of the Temple. At once the Temple doors were closed. ³¹The mob was trying to kill Paul, when a report was sent up to the commander of the Roman troops that all Jerusalem was rioting. ³²At once the commander took some officers and soldiers and rushed down to the crowd. When the people saw him with the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. ³³The commander went over to Paul, arrested him, and ordered him to be bound with two chains. Then he asked, “Who is this man, and what has he done?” ³⁴Some in the crowd shouted one thing, others something else. There was such confusion that the commander could not find out exactly what had happened, so he ordered his men to take Paul up into the fort. ³⁵They got as far as the steps with him, and then the soldiers had to carry him because the mob was so wild. ³⁶They were all coming after him and screaming, “Kill him!”

Paul Defends Himself

³⁷As the soldiers were about to take Paul into the fort, he spoke to the commander: “May I say something to you?”

“You speak Greek, do you?” the commander asked. ³⁸“Then you are not that Egyptian fellow who some time ago started a revolution and led four thousand armed terrorists out into the desert?”

³⁹Paul answered, “I am a Jew, born in…