As for the gentiles who have become believers, we have sent a letter with our decision that they should keep away from food that has been sacrificed to idols, from blood, from anything strangled, and from sexual immorality."

because you will be his witness to all people of what you have seen and heard.

So now, what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized, and have your sins washed away as you call on his name.'

Paul looked straight at the Council and said, "Brothers, with a clear conscience I have done my duty before God up to this very day."

That night the Lord stood near Paul and said, "Have courage! For just as you have testified about me in Jerusalem, you must testify in Rome, too."

They went to the high priests and elders and said, "We have taken a solemn oath not to taste any food before we have killed Paul.

The tribune took him by the hand, stepped aside to be alone with him, and asked, "What have you got to tell me?"

He answered, "The Jewish leaders have agreed to ask you to bring Paul down to the Council tomorrow as though they were going to examine his case more carefully.

For we have found this man a perfect pest and an agitator among all Jews throughout the world. He is a ringleader in the sect of the Nazarenes

"Since I know that you have been a judge over this nation for many years, I am pleased to present my defense. You can verify for yourself that I went up to worship in Jerusalem no more than twelve days ago.

I have the same hope in God that they themselves cherish that there is to be a resurrection of the righteous and the wicked.

Therefore, I always do my best to have a clear conscience before God and people.

After many years, I have come back to my people to bring gifts for the poor and to offer sacrifices.

But some Jews from Asia were there, and they should be here before you to accuse me if they have anything against me.

He ordered the centurion to guard Paul but to let him have some freedom and not to keep any of his friends from caring for his needs.

and asking Festus to have Paul brought to Jerusalem as a favor. They were laying an ambush to kill him on the road.

"Therefore," he said, "have your authorities come down with me and present their charges against him there, if there is anything wrong with the man."

Paul said in his defense, "I have done nothing wrong against the Law of the Jews, or of the Temple, or of the emperor."

But Paul said, "I am standing before the emperor's judgment seat where I ought to be tried. I haven't done anything wrong to the Jewish leaders, as you know very well.

If I'm guilty and have done something that deserves death, I'm willing to die. But if there is nothing to their charges against me, no one can hand me over to them as a favor. I appeal to the emperor!"

Festus talked it over with the council and then answered, "To the emperor you have appealed; to the emperor you will go!"

I find that he has not done anything deserving of death. But since he has appealed to his Majesty, I have decided to send him.

I have nothing reliable to write our Sovereign about him, so I have brought him to all of you, and especially to you, King Agrippa, so that I will have something to write after he is cross-examined.

Then Agrippa told Paul, "You have permission to speak for yourself." So Paul stretched out his hand and began his defense.

They have known for a long time, if they would but testify to it, that I lived as a Pharisee, adhering to the standards of our strictest religious party.

Agrippa told Festus, "This man could have been set free if he hadn't appealed to the emperor."

After they had gone a long time without food, Paul stood among his shipmates and said, "Men, you should have listened to me and not have sailed from Crete. You would have avoided this hardship and damage.

But now I urge you to have courage, because there will be no loss of life among you, but only loss of the ship.

However, we will have to run aground on some island."

Right up to daybreak Paul kept urging all of them to eat something. He said, "Today is the fourteenth day that you have been waiting and going without food, not eating anything.

When the people who lived there saw the snake hanging from his hand, they told one another, "This man must be a murderer! He may have escaped from the sea, but Justice won't let him live."

Three days later, Paul called the leaders of the Jews together. When they assembled, he told them, "Brothers, although I haven't done anything against our people or the customs of our ancestors, I was arrested in Jerusalem and handed over to the Romans.

But the Jews objected and forced me to appeal to the emperor, even though I have no countercharge to bring against my own people.

The Jewish leaders told him, "We haven't received any letters from Judea about you, and none of the brothers coming here has reported or mentioned anything bad about you.

For this people's minds have become stupid, and their ears can barely hear, and they have shut their eyes so that they may never see with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn and let me heal them."'

You, too, are among those who have been called to belong to Jesus the Messiah.

I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I often planned to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now), so that I might reap a harvest among you, just as I have among the rest of the gentiles.

For since the creation of the world God's invisible attributes his eternal power and divine nature have been understood and observed by what he made, so that people are without excuse.

They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, quarreling, deceit, and viciousness. They are gossips,

Therefore, you have no excuse every one of you who judges. For when you pass judgment on another person, you condemn yourself, since you, the judge, practice the very same things.

For all who have sinned apart from the Law will also perish apart from the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law.

For whenever gentiles, who do not possess the Law, do instinctively what the Law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the Law.

and know his will, and approve of what is best because you have been instructed in the Law;

an instructor of ignorant people, and a teacher of infants because you have the full content of knowledge and truth in the Law

The man who is uncircumcised physically but who keeps the Law will condemn you who break the Law, even though you have the written Law and circumcision.

What advantage, then, does the Jew have, or what value is there in circumcision?

There are all kinds of advantages! First of all, the Jews have been entrusted with the utterances of God.

What, then, does this mean? Are we Jews any better off? Not at all! For we have already accused everyone, both Jews and Greeks, of being under the power of sin.

All have turned away. They have become completely worthless. No one shows kindness, not even one person!

They have not learned the path to peace.

since all have sinned and continue to fall short of God's glory.

For if Abraham was justified by actions, he would have had something to boast about though not before God.

As it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations." Abraham acted in faith when he stood in the presence of God, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence things that don't yet exist.

Hoping in spite of hopeless circumstances, he believed that he would become "the father of many nations," just as he had been told: "This is how many descendants you will have."

His faith did not weaken when he thought about his own body (which was already as good as dead now that he was about a hundred years old) or about Sarah's inability to have children,

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus the Messiah.

Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace by which we have been established, and we boast because of our hope in God's glory.

Now that we have been justified by his blood, how much more will we be saved from wrath through him!

Not only that, but we also continue to boast about God through our Lord Jesus the Messiah, through whom we have now been reconciled.

But God's free gift is not like Adam's offense. For if many people died as the result of one man's offense, how much more have God's grace and the free gift given through the kindness of one man, Jesus the Messiah, been showered on many people!

For if we have become united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.

Now if we have died with the Messiah, we believe that we will also live with him,

Stop offering the parts of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness. Instead, offer yourselves to God as people who have been brought from death to life and the parts of your body as instruments of righteousness to God.

For sin will not have mastery over you, because you are not under Law but under grace.

And since you have been freed from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness.

But now that you have been freed from sin and have become God's slaves, the benefit you reap is sanctification, and the result is eternal life.

But now we have been released from the Law by dying to what enslaved us, so that we may serve in the new life of the Spirit, not under the old writings.

What should we say, then? Is the Law sinful? Of course not! In fact, I wouldn't have become aware of sin if it had not been for the Law. I wouldn't have known what it means to covet if the Law had not said, "You must not covet."

For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but I cannot carry it out.

You, however, are not under the control of the human nature but under the control of the Spirit, since God's Spirit lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of the Messiah, he does not belong to him.

For you have not received a spirit of slavery that leads you into fear again. Instead, you have received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba! Father!"

However, not only the creation, but we who have the first fruits of the Spirit also groan inwardly as we eagerly await our adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

I have deep sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart,

For this is the language of the promise: "At this time I will return, and Sarah will have a son."

For the Scripture says about Pharaoh, "I have raised you up for this very purpose, to demonstrate my power through you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."

It is just as Isaiah predicted: "If the Lord of the Heavenly Armies had not left us some descendants, we would have become like Sodom and would have been compared to Gomorrah."

What can we say, then? Gentiles, who were not pursuing righteousness, have attained righteousness, a righteousness that comes through faith.

For I can testify on their behalf that they have a zeal for God, but it is not in keeping with full knowledge.

For they are ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God while they try to establish their own, and they have not submitted to God's means to attain righteousness.

There is no difference between Jew and Greek, because they all have the same Lord, who gives richly to all who call on him.

How, then, can people call on someone they have not believed? And how can they believe in someone they have not heard about? And how can they hear without someone preaching?

But about Israel he says, "All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and rebellious people."

"Lord, they have killed your prophets and demolished your altars. I am the only one left, and they are trying to take my life."

But what was the divine reply to him? "I have reserved for myself 7,000 people who have not knelt to worship Baal."

And so I ask, "They have not stumbled so as to fall, have they?" Of course not! On the contrary, because of their stumbling, salvation has come to the gentiles to make the Jews jealous.

Now if some of the branches have been broken off, and you, a wild olive branch, have been grafted in their place to share the rich root of the olive tree,

For just as you disobeyed God in the past but now have received his mercy because of their disobedience,

so they, too, have now disobeyed. As a result, they may receive mercy because of the mercy shown to you.

For God has locked all people in the prison of their own disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.

Or who has given him something only to have him pay it back?"

For we have many parts in one body, but these parts do not all have the same function.

We have different gifts based on the grace that was given to us. So if your gift is prophecy, use your gift in proportion to your faith.

Every person must be subject to the governing authorities, for no authority exists except by God's permission. The existing authorities have been established by God,

I know and have been persuaded by the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in and of itself, but it is unclean to a person who thinks it is unclean.

As for the faith you do have, have it as your own conviction before God. How blessed is the person who has no reason to condemn himself because of what he approves!

For even the Messiah did not please himself. Instead, as it is written, "The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me."

For everything that was written long ago was written to instruct us, so that we might have hope through the endurance and encouragement that the Scriptures give us.

However, on some points I have written to you rather boldly, both as a reminder to you and because of the grace given me by God

Therefore, in the Messiah Jesus I have the right to boast about my work for God.

by the power of signs and wonders, and by the power of God's Spirit, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of the Messiah from Jerusalem as far as Illyricum.