Acts 27:1–28

Paul Sails for Rome

27When it was decided that we should sail to Italy, they handed Paul and some other prisoners over to Julius, an officer in the Roman regiment called “The Emperor’s Regiment”. ²We 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. ³The 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. ⁴We went on from there, and because the winds were blowing against us, we sailed on the sheltered side of the island of Cyprus. ⁵We crossed over the sea off Cilicia and Pamphylia and came to Myra in Lycia. ⁶There the officer found a ship from Alexandria that was going to sail for Italy, so he put us aboard.

⁷We sailed slowly for several days and with great difficulty finally arrived off the town of Cnidus. The wind would not let us go any further in that direction, so we sailed down the sheltered side of the island of Crete, passing by Cape Salmone. ⁸We kept close to the coast and with great difficulty came to a place called Safe Harbours, not far from the town of Lasea.

⁹We spent a long time there, until it became dangerous to continue the voyage, for by now the Day of Atonement^l 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.” ¹¹But the army officer was convinced by what the captain and the owner of the ship said, and not by what Paul said. ¹²The harbour was not a good one to spend the winter in; so most people were in favour of putting out to sea and trying to reach Phoenix, if possible, in order to spend the winter there. Phoenix is a harbour in Crete that faces south-west and north-west.^m

The Storm at Sea

¹³A 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. ¹⁴But soon a very strong wind—the one called “North-easter”—blew down from the island. ¹⁵It 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. ¹⁶We 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. ¹⁷They pulled it aboard and then fastened some ropes tight round 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. ¹⁸The violent storm continued, so on the next day they began to throw some of the ship’s cargo overboard, ¹⁹and on the following day they threw part of the ship’s equipment overboard. ²⁰For 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.

²¹After those on board had gone a long time without food, Paul stood before them and said, “Men, you should have listened to me and not have sailed from Crete; then we would have avoided all this damage and loss. ²²But now I beg you, take heart! Not one of you will lose your life; only the ship will be lost. ²³For last night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship came to me ²⁴and 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.’ ²⁵So take heart, men! For I trust in God that it will be just as I was told. ²⁶But we will be driven ashore on some island.” ²⁷It was the fourteenth night, and we were being driven about in the Mediterranean by the storm. About midnight the sailors suspected that we were getting close to land. ²⁸So they dropped a line with a weight tied to it and found that the water was 40 metres deep; a little later they did the same and found that it was 30 metres deep.