Acts 27:21–44

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 seas met, they ran the vessel aground; and the prow stuck fast and remained immovable, but the stern began to be broken up by the force of the waves.

⁴²The soldiers’ plan was to ^akill the prisoners, so that none of them would swim away and escape;

⁴³but the centurion, ^awanting to bring Paul safely through, kept them from their intention, and commanded that those who could swim should ¹jump overboard first and get to land,

⁴⁴and the rest should follow, some on planks, and others on various things from the ship. And so it happened that ^athey all were brought safely to land.