²²Up to that point the mob listened. Then they began to shout, “Kill him! The world doesn’t need a man like this. He shouldn’t have been allowed to live this long!”

²³The mob was yelling, taking off their coats, and throwing dirt into the air. ²⁴So the officer ordered the soldiers to take Paul into the barracks and told them to question Paul as they whipped him. The officer wanted to find out why the people were yelling at Paul like this. ²⁵But when the soldiers had Paul stretch out ⸤to tie him to the whipping post⸥ with the straps, Paul asked the sergeant who was standing there, “Is it legal for you to whip a Roman citizen who hasn’t had a trial?”

²⁶When the sergeant heard this, he reported it to his commanding officer. The sergeant asked him, “What are you doing? This man is a Roman citizen.”

²⁷The officer went to Paul and asked him, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?”

Paul answered, “Yes.”

²⁸The officer replied, “I paid a lot of money to become a Roman citizen.”

Paul replied, “But I was born a Roman citizen.”

²⁹Immediately, the soldiers who were going to question Paul stepped away from him. The officer was afraid when he found out that he had tied up a Roman citizen.

Paul in Front of the Jewish Council

³⁰The officer wanted to find out exactly what accusation the Jews had against Paul. So the officer released Paul the next day and ordered the chief priests and the entire Jewish council to meet. Then the officer brought Paul and had him stand in front of them.

23RD CHAPTER

¹Paul stared at the Jewish council and said, “Brothers, my relationship with God has always given me a perfectly clear conscience.”

²The chief priest Ananias ordered the men standing near Paul to strike him on the mouth. ³Then Paul said to him, “God will strike you, you hypocrite! You sit there and judge me by Moses’ Teachings and yet you break those teachings by ordering these men to strike me!”

⁴The men standing near Paul said to him, “You’re insulting God’s chief priest!”

⁵Paul answered, “Brothers, I didn’t know that he is the chief priest. After all, Scripture says, ‘Don’t speak evil about a ruler of your people.’ ”

⁶When Paul saw that some of them were Sadducees and others were Pharisees, he shouted in the council, “Brothers, I’m a Pharisee and a descendant of Pharisees. I’m on trial because I expect that the dead will come back to life.”

⁷After Paul said that, the Pharisees and Sadducees began to quarrel, and the men in the meeting were divided. ⁸(The Sadducees say that the dead won’t come back to life and that angels and spirits don’t exist. The Pharisees believe in all these things.) ⁹The shouting became very loud. Some of the experts in Moses’ Teachings were Pharisees who argued their position forcefully. They said, “We don’t find anything wrong with this man. Maybe a spirit or an angel actually spoke to him!”

¹⁰The quarrel was becoming violent, and the officer was afraid that they would tear Paul to pieces. So the officer ordered his soldiers to drag Paul back to the barracks.

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