Acts 16:16–24

Paul and Silas in Prison

¹⁶Once when we were going to the place of prayer,^q we were met by a female slave who had a spirit^r by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. ¹⁷She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God,^s who are telling you the way to be saved.” ¹⁸She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.^t

¹⁹When her owners realized that their hope of making money^u was gone, they seized Paul and Silas^v and dragged^w them into the marketplace to face the authorities. ²⁰They brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar^{x 21}by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans^y to accept or practice.”^z

²²The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods.^{a 23}After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer^b was commanded to guard them carefully. ²⁴When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.^c