When they heard this, the men were greatly enraged, and began shouting--"Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!"

Meanwhile some were shouting one thing and some another, for the Assembly was all in confusion, most of those present not even knowing why they had met.

However, when they recognized him as a Jew, one cry broke from them all, and they continued shouting for two hours--"Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!"

For you have brought these men here, though they are neither robbers of Temples nor blasphemers of our Goddess.

Meanwhile they had taken the lad away alive, and were greatly comforted.

And, when they came, he spoke to them as follows: "You know well the life that I always led among you from the very first day that I set foot in Roman Asia,

All were in tears; and throwing their arms round Paul's neck, they kissed him again and again,

Grieving most of all over what he had said--that they would never see his face again. Then they escorted him to the ship.

There we found the disciples and stayed a week with them. Speaking under the influence of the Spirit, they warned Paul not to set foot in Jerusalem.

And then said good-bye to one another; after which we went on board, and they returned home.

He came to see us, and, taking Paul's girdle, and binding his own feet and hands with it, said: "This is what the Holy Spirit says--'The man to whom this girdle belongs will be bound like this at Jerusalem by the Jews, and they will give him up to the Gentiles'."

And, when they had heard it, they began praising God, and said to Paul: "You see, Brother, that the Jews who have become believers in Christ may be numbered by tens of thousands, and they are all naturally earnest in upholding the Jewish Law.

Now they have heard it said about you, that you teach all Jews in foreign countries to forsake Moses, for you tell them not to circumcise their children or even to observe Jewish customs.

Well now, as they are certain to hear of your arrival, do what we are going to suggest.

Join these men, share their purification, and bear their expenses, so that they may shave their heads; and then all will see that there is no truth in what they have been told about you, but that, on the contrary, you yourself rule your life in obedience to the Jewish Law.

As to the Gentiles who have become believers in Christ, we have sent our decision that they should avoid food offered to idols, and blood, and the flesh of strangled animals, and impurity."

(For they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in Paul's company in the city, and were under the belief that Paul had taken him into the Temple.)

They were bent upon killing him, when it was reported to the Officer commanding the garrison, that all Jerusalem was in commotion.

He instantly got together some officers and men, and charged down upon the crowd, who, when they saw the Commanding Officer and his men, stopped beating Paul.

When they heard that he was speaking to them in Hebrew, they were still more quiet; and Paul went on:

And saw Jesus saying to me 'Make haste and leave Jerusalem at once, because they will not accept your testimony about me.'

Up to this point the people had been listening to Paul, but at these words they called out: "Kill him! A fellow like this ought not to have been allowed to live!"

As they were shouting, tearing off their clothes, and throwing dust in the air,

But just as they had tied him up to be scourged, Paul said to the Captain standing near: "Is it legal for you to scourge a Roman citizen, unconvicted?"

In the morning the Jews combined together, and took an oath that they would not eat or drink till they had killed Paul.

And they went to the Chief Priests and the Councillors, and said: "We have taken a solemn oath not to touch food till we have killed Paul.

But do not let them persuade you, for more than forty of them are lying in wait for him, who have taken an oath that they will not eat or drink, till they have made away with him; and they are at this very moment in readiness, counting upon your promise."

And to have horses ready for Paul to ride, so that they might take him safely to Felix, the Governor.

Wishing to ascertain exactly the ground of the charges they made against him, I brought him before their Council,

And on the next day, leaving the troopers to go on with him, they returned to the Fort.

Five days afterwards the High Priest Ananias came down with some of the Councillors and a barrister named Tertullus. They laid an information with the Governor against Paul;

And they cannot establish the charges which they are now making against me.

This, however, I do acknowledge to you, that it is as a believer in the Cause which they call heretical, that I worship the God of my ancestors. At the same time, I believe everything that is in accordance with the Law and that is written in the prophets;

And I have a hope that rests in God--a hope which they also cherish--that there will one day be a resurrection of good and bad alike.

And it was while engaged in this that they found me in the Temple, after completing a period of purification, but not with any crowd or disorder.

There were, however, some Jews from Roman Asia who ought to have been here before you, and to have made any charge that they may have against me--

Or else let my opponents here say what they found wrong in me when I was before the Council,

And asked a favor of him, to Paul's injury--to have Paul brought to Jerusalem. All the while they were plotting to make away with him on the road.

On Paul's appearance, the Jews who had come down from Jerusalem surrounded him, and made many serious charges, which they failed to establish.

And, as they were staying there for several days, Festus laid Paul's case before the King. "There is a man here," he said, "left a prisoner by Felix,

So they met here, and without loss of time I took my seat on the Bench the very next day, and ordered the man to be brought before me.

But, when his accusers came forward, they brought no charge of wrong-doing such as I had expected;

And they have always known--if they choose to give evidence- -that, in accordance with the very strictest form of our religion, I lived a true Pharisee.

To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God; so that they may receive pardon for their sins, and a place among those who have become God's People, by faith in me.'

And, after retiring, discussed the case among themselves. "There is nothing," they said, "deserving death or imprisonment in this man's conduct";

So, when a light wind sprang up from the south, thinking that they had found their opportunity, they weighed anchor and kept along the coast of Crete, close in shore.

And, after hoisting it on board, the men frapped the ship. But, afraid of being driven on to the Syrtis Sands, they lowered the yard, and then drifted.

So violently were we tossed about by the storm, that the next day they began throwing the cargo overboard,

It was then, when they had gone a long time without food, that Paul came forward, and said: "My friends, you should have listened to me, and not have sailed from Crete and so incurred this injury and damage.

It was now the fourteenth night of the storm, and we were drifting about in the Adriatic Sea, when, about midnight, the sailors began to suspect that they were drawing near land.

So they took soundings, and found twenty fathoms of water. After waiting a little, they took soundings again, and found fifteen fathoms.

Then, as they were afraid of our being driven upon some rocky coast, they let go four anchors from the stern, and longed for daylight.

After satisfying their hunger, they further lightened the ship by throwing the grain into the sea.

When daylight came, they could not make out what land it was, but, observing a creek in which there was a beach, they consulted as to whether they could run the ship safely into it.

Then they cast off, and abandoned the anchors, and at the same time unlashed the gear of the steering oars, hoisted the foresail to the wind, and made for the beach.

They got, however, into a kind of channel, and there ran the ship aground. The bows stuck fast and could not be moved, while the stern began breaking up under the strain.

The natives showed us marked kindness, for they lit a fire and took us all under shelter, because it had come on to rain and was cold.

When the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another: "Evidently this man is a murderer, for though he has been saved from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live."

The natives were expecting inflammation to set in, or that he would suddenly fall dead; but, after waiting for a long time, and seeing that there was nothing amiss with him, they changed their minds and said that he was a God.

They also presented us with many gifts, and when we set sail they put supplies of necessaries on board.

Three days after our arrival, Paul invited the leading Jews to meet him; and, when they came, he spoke to them as follows: "Brothers, although I had done nothing hostile to the interests of our nation or to our ancestral customs, yet I was sent from Jerusalem as a prisoner, and handed over to the Romans.

The Romans, when they had examined me, were ready to release me, because there was nothing in my conduct deserving death.

They then fixed a day with him, and came to the place where he was staying, in even larger numbers, when Paul proceeded to lay the subject before them. He bore his testimony to the Kingdom of God, and tried to convince them about Jesus, by arguments drawn from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets--speaking from morning till evening.

So, as they disagreed among themselves, they began to disperse, Paul adding only--"True, indeed, was the declaration made by the Holy Spirit, through the Prophet Isaiah to your ancestors--

For the mind of this nation has grown dense, and their ears are dull of hearing, their eyes also have they closed; lest some day they should see with their eyes, and with their ears they should hear, and in their mind they should understand, and should turn--and I should heal them.'

Understand, then, that this Salvation of God was sent for the Gentiles; and they will listen."

Because, although they learned to know God, yet they did not offer him as God either praise or thanksgiving. Their speculations about him proved futile, and their undiscerning minds were darkened.

Professing to be wise, they showed themselves fools;

And they transformed the Glory of the immortal God into the likeness of mortal man, and of birds, and beasts, and reptiles.

Therefore God abandoned them to impurity, letting them follow the cravings of their hearts, till they dishonored their own bodies;

For they had substituted a lie for the truth about God, and had reverenced and worshiped created things more than the Creator, who is to be praised for ever. Amen.

Then, as they would not keep God before their minds, God abandoned them to depraved thoughts, so that they did all kinds of shameful things.

They reveled in every form of wickedness, evil, greed, vice. Their lives were full of envy, murder, quarreling, treachery, malice.

They became back-biters, slanderers, impious, insolent, boastful. They devised new sins. They disobeyed their parents.

They were undiscerning, untrustworthy, without natural affection or pity.

Well aware of God's decree, that those who do such things deserve to die, not only are they guilty of them themselves, but they even applaud those who do them.

All who, when they sin, are without Law will also perish without Law; while all who, when they sin, are under Law, will be judged as being under Law.

When Gentiles, who have no Law, do instinctively what the Law requires, they, though they have no Law, are a Law to themselves;

For they show the demands of the Law written upon their hearts; their consciences corroborating it, while in their thoughts they argue either in self-accusation or, it may be, in self- defense--

They have all gone astray; they have one and all become depraved; there is no one who is doing good-no, not one!'

'Their throats are like opened graves; they deceive with their tongues.' 'The venom of serpents lies behind their lips,'

And the path of peace they do not know.'

Not after, but before. And it was as a sign of this that he received the rite of circumcision-to attest the righteousness due to the faith of an uncircumcised man-in order that he might be the father of all who have faith in God even when uncircumcised, that they also may be regarded by God as righteous;

As Scripture says-'I have made thee the Father of many nations.') And this they do in the sight of that God in whom Abraham had faith, and who gives life to the dead, and speaks of what does not yet exist as if it did.

They who follow their earthly nature are earthly-minded, while they who follow the Spirit are spiritually minded.

They who are earthly cannot please God.

For they are Israelites, and theirs are the adoption as Sons, the visible Presence, the Covenants, the revealed Law, the Temple worship, and the Promises.

They are descended from the Patriarchs; and, as far as his human nature was concerned, from them came the Christ-he who is supreme over all things, God for ever blessed. Amen.

Nor, because they are Abraham's descendants, are they all his Children; but-'It is Isaac's children who will be called thy descendants.'

For in order that the purpose of God, working through selection, might not fail-a selection depending, not on obedience, but on his Call-Rebecca was told, before her children were born and before they had done anything either right or wrong,

And what if God, intending to reveal his displeasure and make his power known, bore most patiently with the objects of his displeasure, though they were fit only to be destroyed,

And in the very place where it was said to them-"Ye are not my People", they shall be called Sons of the Living God.'

And why? Because they looked to obedience, and not to faith, to secure it. They stumbled over 'the Stumbling-block.'

I can testify that they are zealous for the honor of God; but they are not guided by true insight,

For, in their ignorance of the Divine Righteousness, and in their eagerness to set up a righteousness of their own, they refused to accept with submission the Divine Righteousness.

For with their hearts men believe and so attain to righteousness, while with their lips they make their Profession of Faith and so find Salvation.

But how, it may be asked, are they to invoke one in whom they have not learned to believe? And how are they to believe in one whose words they have not heard? And how are they to hear his words unless some one proclaims him?

And how are men to proclaim him unless they are sent as his messengers? As Scripture says--'How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!'

'Lord, they have killed thy Prophets, they have pulled down thy altars, and I only am left; and now they are eager to take my life.'

May their eyes be darkened, so that they cannot see; and do thou always make their backs to bend.'