"I am a Jew," replied Paul, "belonging to Tarsus in Cilicia, and am a citizen of no unimportant city. Give me leave, I pray you, to speak to the people."

But, when they had tied him up with the straps, Paul said to the Captain who stood by, "Does the Law permit you to flog a Roman citizen--and one too who is uncondemned?"

On hearing this question, the Captain went to report the matter to the Tribune. "What are you intending to do?" he said. "This man is a Roman citizen."

So the Tribune came to Paul and asked him, "Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?" "Yes," he said.

So the men who had been on the point of putting him under torture immediately left him. And the Tribune, too, was frightened when he learnt that Paul was a Roman citizen, for he had had him bound.

This man Paul had been seized by the Jews, and they were on the point of killing him, when I came upon them with the troops and rescued him, for I had been informed that he was a Roman citizen.

Here they brought forward false witnesses who declared, "This fellow is incessantly speaking against the Holy Place and the Law.

and you see and hear that, not in Ephesus only but throughout almost the whole province of Asia, this fellow Paul has led away a vast number of people by inducing them to believe that they are not gods at all that are made by men's hands.

The riot and uproar spread through the whole city, till at last with one accord they rushed into the Theatre, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, two Macedonians who were fellow travellers with Paul.

Until they heard this last statement the people listened to Paul, but now with a roar of disapproval they cried out, "Away with such a fellow from the earth! He ought not to be allowed to live."

But Paul said to them, "After cruelly beating us in public, without trial, Roman citizens though we are, they have thrown us into prison, and are they now going to send us away privately? No, indeed! Let them come in person and fetch us out."

This answer the lictors took back to the praetors, who were alarmed when they were told that Paul and Silas were Roman citizens.