Acts 26–28

Chapter 26

Paul’s Defense before Agrippa

^1aAgrippa said to Paul, “You are permitted to speak for yourself.” Then Paul stretched out his hand and proceeded to make his defense:

²“In regard to all the things of which I am accused by the Jews, I consider myself fortunate, King Agrippa, that I am about to make my defense before you today;

³¹especially because you are an expert in all ^acustoms and ²questions among the Jews; therefore I beg you to listen to me patiently.

⁴“So then, all Jews know ^amy manner of life from my youth up, which from the beginning was spent among my own nation and at Jerusalem;

⁵since they have known about me for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that I lived as a ^aPharisee ^baccording to the strictest ^csect of our religion.

⁶“And now I am ¹standing trial ^afor the hope of ^bthe promise made by God to our fathers;

⁷the promise ^ato which our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly serve God night and day. And for this ^bhope, O King, I am being ^caccused by Jews.

⁸“Why is it considered incredible among you people ^aif God does raise the dead?

⁹“So then, ^aI thought to myself that I had to do many things hostile to ^bthe name of Jesus of Nazareth.

¹⁰“And this is ¹just what I ^adid in Jerusalem; not only did I lock up many of the ²saints in prisons, having ^breceived authority from the chief priests, but also when they were being put to death I ^ccast my vote against them.

¹¹“And ^aas I punished them often in all the synagogues, I tried to force them to blaspheme; and being ^bfuriously enraged at them, I kept pursuing them ^ceven to ¹foreign cities.

¹²“¹While so engaged ^aas I was journeying to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests,

¹³at midday, O King, I saw on the way a light from heaven, ¹brighter than the sun, shining all around me and those who were journeying with me.

¹⁴“And when we had ^aall fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the ^1bHebrew dialect, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? ²It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’

¹⁵“And I said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ And the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.

¹⁶‘But get up and ^astand on your feet; for this purpose I have appeared to you, to ^bappoint you a ^cminister and ^da witness not only to the things which you have ¹seen, but also to the things in which I will appear to you;

^17arescuing you ^bfrom the Jewish people and from the Gentiles, to whom I am sending you,

¹⁸to ^aopen their eyes so that they may turn from ^bdarkness to light and from the dominion of ^cSatan to God, that they may receive ^dforgiveness of sins and an ^einheritance among those who have been sanctified by ^ffaith in Me.’

¹⁹“So, King Agrippa, I did not prove disobedient to the heavenly vision,

²⁰but kept declaring both ^ato those of Damascus first, and also ^bat Jerusalem and then throughout all the region of Judea, and even ^cto the Gentiles, that they should ^drepent and turn to God, performing deeds ^eappropriate to repentance.

²¹“For this reason some Jews ^aseized me in the temple and tried ^bto put me to death.

²²“So, having obtained help from God, I stand to this day ^atestifying both to small and great, stating nothing but what ^bthe Prophets and Moses said was going to take place;

^231athat ²the Christ was ³to suffer, and that ^bby reason of His resurrection from the dead He would be the first to proclaim ^clight both to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles.”

²⁴While Paul was saying this in his defense, Festus said in a loud voice, “Paul, you are out of your mind! ¹Your great ^alearning is ²driving you mad.”

²⁵But Paul said, “I am not out of my mind, ^amost excellent Festus, but I utter words ¹of sober truth.

²⁶“For the king ^1aknows about these matters, and I speak to him also with confidence, since I am persuaded that none of these things escape his notice; for this has not been done in a ²corner.

²⁷“King Agrippa, do you believe the Prophets? I know that you ¹do.”

²⁸Agrippa replied to Paul, “¹In a short time you ²will persuade me to ³become a ^aChristian.”

²⁹And Paul said, “¹I would wish to God, that whether ²in a short or long time, not only you, but also all who hear me this day, might become such as I am, except for these ^achains.”

^30aThe king stood up and the governor and Bernice, and those who were sitting with them,

³¹and when they had gone aside, they began talking to one another, saying, “^aThis man is not doing anything worthy of death or ¹imprisonment.”

³²And Agrippa said to Festus, “This man might have been ^aset free if he had not ^bappealed to Caesar.”

Chapter 27

Paul Is Sent to Rome

¹When it was decided that ^awe ^bwould sail for ^cItaly, they proceeded to deliver Paul and some other prisoners to a centurion of the Augustan ^1dcohort named Julius.

²And embarking in an Adramyttian ship, which was about to sail to the regions along the coast of ^1aAsia, we put out to sea accompanied by ^bAristarchus, a ^cMacedonian of ^dThessalonica.

³The next day we put in at ^aSidon; and Julius ^btreated Paul with consideration and ^callowed him to go to his friends and receive care.

⁴From there we put out to sea and sailed under the shelter of ^aCyprus because ^bthe winds were contrary.

⁵When we had sailed through the sea along the coast of ^aCilicia and ^bPamphylia, we landed at Myra in Lycia.

⁶There the centurion found an ^aAlexandrian ship sailing for ^bItaly, and he put us aboard it.

⁷When we had sailed slowly for a good many days, and with difficulty had arrived off Cnidus, ^asince the wind did not permit us to go farther, we sailed under the shelter of ^bCrete, off Salmone;

⁸and with difficulty ^asailing past it we came to a place called Fair Havens, near which was the city of Lasea.

⁹When considerable time had passed and the voyage was now dangerous, since even ^athe ¹fast was already over, Paul began to admonish them,

¹⁰and said to them, “Men, I perceive that the voyage will certainly be with ^adamage and great loss, not only of the cargo and the ship, but also of our lives.”

¹¹But the centurion was more persuaded by the ^apilot and the ¹captain of the ship than by what was being said by Paul.

¹²Because the harbor was not suitable for wintering, the majority reached a decision to put out to sea from there, if somehow they could reach Phoenix, a harbor of ^aCrete, facing southwest and northwest, and spend the winter there.

¹³¹When a moderate south wind came up, supposing that they had attained their purpose, they weighed anchor and began ^asailing along ^bCrete, close inshore.

Shipwreck

¹⁴But before very long there ^arushed down from ¹the land a violent wind, called ²Euraquilo;

¹⁵and when the ship was caught in it and could not face the wind, we gave way to it and let ourselves be driven along.

¹⁶Running under the shelter of a small island called Clauda, we were scarcely able to get the ship’s ¹boat under control.

¹⁷After they had hoisted it up, they used ¹supporting cables in undergirding the ship; and fearing that they might ^arun aground on the shallows of Syrtis, they let down the ²sea anchor and in this way let themselves be driven along.

¹⁸The next day as we were being violently storm-tossed, ¹they began to ^ajettison the cargo;

¹⁹and on the third day they threw the ship’s tackle overboard with their own hands.

²⁰Since neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small storm was assailing us, from then on all hope of our being saved was gradually abandoned.

²¹¹When they had gone a long time without food, then Paul stood up in their midst and said, “^aMen, you ought to have ²followed my advice and not to have set sail from ^bCrete and ³incurred this damage and loss.

²²“Yet now I urge you to ^akeep up your courage, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship.

²³“For this very night ^aan angel of the God to whom I belong and ^bwhom I serve ^cstood before me,

²⁴saying, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; ^ayou must stand before Caesar; and behold, God has granted you ^ball those who are sailing with you.’

²⁵“Therefore, ^akeep up your courage, men, for I believe God that ¹it will turn out exactly as I have been told.

²⁶“But we must ^arun aground on a certain ^bisland.”

²⁷But when the fourteenth night came, as we were being driven about in the Adriatic Sea, about midnight the sailors began to surmise that ¹they were approaching some land.

²⁸They took soundings and found it to be twenty fathoms; and a little farther on they took another sounding and found it to be fifteen fathoms.

²⁹Fearing that we might ^arun aground somewhere on the ¹rocks, they cast four anchors from the stern and ²wished for daybreak.

³⁰But as the sailors were trying to escape from the ship and had let down ^athe ship’s boat into the sea, on the pretense of intending to lay out anchors from the bow,

³¹Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, “Unless these men remain in the ship, you yourselves cannot be saved.”

³²Then the soldiers cut away the ^aropes of the ship’s boat and let it fall away.

³³Until the day was about to dawn, Paul was encouraging them all to take some food, saying, “Today is the fourteenth day that you have been constantly watching and going without eating, having taken nothing.

³⁴“Therefore I encourage you to take some food, for this is for your preservation, for ^anot a hair from the head of any of you will perish.”

³⁵Having said this, he took bread and ^agave thanks to God in the presence of all, and he broke it and began to eat.

³⁶All ^aof them ¹were encouraged and they themselves also took food.

³⁷All of us in the ship were two hundred and seventy-six ^1apersons.

³⁸When they had eaten enough, they began to lighten the ship by ^athrowing out the wheat into the sea.

³⁹When day came, ^athey ¹could not recognize the land; but they did observe a bay with a beach, and they resolved to drive the ship onto it if they could.

⁴⁰And casting off ^athe anchors, they left them in the sea while at the same time they were loosening the ropes of the rudders; and hoisting the foresail to the wind, they were heading for the beach.

⁴¹But striking a ¹reef where two…