Acts 22:22–29

Paul the Roman Citizen

²²The crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they raised their voices and shouted, “Rid the earth of him!ⁱ He’s not fit to live!”^j

²³As they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks^k and flinging dust into the air,^{l 24}the commander ordered that Paul be taken into the barracks.^m He directedⁿ that he be flogged and interrogated in order to find out why the people were shouting at him like this. ²⁵As they stretched him out to flog him, Paul said to the centurion standing there, “Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who hasn’t even been found guilty?”^o

²⁶When the centurion heard this, he went to the commander and reported it. “What are you going to do?” he asked. “This man is a Roman citizen.”

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

“Yes, I am,” he answered.

²⁸Then the commander said, “I had to pay a lot of money for my citizenship.”

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

²⁹Those who were about to interrogate him^p withdrew immediately. The commander himself was alarmed when he realized that he had put Paul, a Roman citizen,^q in chains.^r