Acts 22:22–23:10

²²The crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they began shouting, “Get rid of him! He doesn’t deserve to live!” ²³They shouted, threw off their coats, ⁿ and threw dust into the air. ⁿ

²⁴Then the commander ordered the soldiers to take Paul into the army building and beat him. He wanted to make Paul tell why the people were shouting against him like this. ²⁵But as the soldiers were tying him up, preparing to beat him, Paul said to an officer nearby, “Do you have the right to beat a Roman citizen ⁿ who has not been proven guilty?”

²⁶When the officer heard this, he went to the commander and reported it. The officer said, “Do you know what you are doing? This man is a Roman citizen.”

²⁷The commander came to Paul and said, “Tell me, are you really a Roman citizen?”

He answered, “Yes.”

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

But Paul said, “I was born a citizen.”

²⁹The men who were preparing to question Paul moved away from him immediately. The commander was frightened because he had already tied Paul, and Paul was a Roman citizen.

Paul Speaks to Leaders

³⁰The next day the commander decided to learn why the Jews were accusing Paul. So he ordered the leading priests and the council to meet. The commander took Paul’s chains off. Then he brought Paul out and stood him before their meeting.

23Paul looked at the council and said, “Brothers, I have lived my life without guilt feelings before God up to this day.” ²Ananias, ⁿ the high priest, heard this and told the men who were standing near Paul to hit him on the mouth. ³Paul said to Ananias, “God will hit you, too! You are like a wall that has been painted white. You sit there and judge me, using the law of Moses, but you are telling them to hit me, and that is against the law.”

⁴The men standing near Paul said to him, “You cannot insult God’s high priest like that!”

⁵Paul said, “Brothers, I did not know this man was the high priest. It is written in the Scriptures, ‘You must not curse a leader of your people.’ ” ⁿ

⁶Some of the men in the meeting were Sadducees, and others were Pharisees. Knowing this, Paul shouted to them, “My brothers, I am a Pharisee, and my father was a Pharisee. I am on trial here because I believe that people will rise from the dead.”

⁷When Paul said this, there was an argument between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the group was divided. ⁸(The Sadducees do not believe in angels or spirits or that people will rise from the dead. But the Pharisees believe in them all.) ⁹So there was a great uproar. Some of the teachers of the law, who were Pharisees, stood up and argued, “We find nothing wrong with this man. Maybe an angel or a spirit did speak to him.”

¹⁰The argument was beginning to turn into such a fight that the commander was afraid some evil people would tear Paul to pieces. So he told the soldiers to go down and take Paul away and put him in the army building.