The city was filled with the confusion, and they rushed with one accord into the theater, dragging along Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul's traveling companions from Macedonia.

And when the town clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, "Men of Ephesus, what man is there after all who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is guardian of the temple of the great Artemis and of the image which fell down from heaven?

But we sailed away from Philippi after the Days of Unleavened Bread, and in five days came to them at Troas, where we stayed seven days.

And there was a young man named Eutychus sitting in the window sill, sinking into a deep sleep. And as Paul talked on and on, he was overcome by sleep and fell down from the third story and was picked up dead.

Sailing from there, we arrived the following day opposite Chios; and the next day we crossed over to Samos; and the day after that we came to Miletus.

From Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called to him the elders of the church.

And when they came to him, he said to them: "You yourselves know how I lived the whole time I was with you, from the first day that I set foot in Asia,

how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly and from house to house,

But I do not consider my life of any account nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.

For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.

and from among your own selves will arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.

When we had parted from them and set sail, we came by a straight course to Cos, and the next day to Rhodes, and from there to Patara.

When we had finished the voyage from Tyre, we arrived at Ptolemais; and we greeted the brethren and stayed with them for a day.

As we were staying there for some days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea.

And some of the disciples from Caesarea went with us, bringing us to the house of Mnason of Cyprus, an early disciple, with whom we were to lodge.

But as for the Gentiles who have believed, we wrote to them our decision that they should abstain from meat sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication."

When the seven days were almost over, the Jews from Asia, upon seeing him in the temple, stirred up all the crowd and laid hands on him,

Paul replied, "I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no insignificant city; I beg you, let me speak to the people."

as also the high priest and all the Council of the elders can testify. From them I also received letters to the brethren, and started off for Damascus in order to bring even those who were there to Jerusalem as prisoners to be punished.

"As I made my journey and drew near to Damascus, about noon a bright light from heaven suddenly flashed around me.

Then he said, 'The God of our fathers has appointed you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth.

Up to this word they listened to him, and then they raised their voices and said, "Away with such a fellow from the earth! For he ought not to live."

So those who were about to examine him withdrew from him immediately; and the commander also was afraid when he realized that Paul was a Roman citizen and that he had put him in chains.

The dispute became so violent that the commander was afraid Paul would be torn to pieces by them and ordered the troops to go down and take him away from them by force, and bring him into the barracks.

But do not yield to them; for more than forty of them are waiting in ambush for him, having bound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink until they have killed him; and now they are ready, waiting for the promise from you."

When he had read the letter, he asked from what province he was, and when he learned that he was from Cilicia,

As I was doing this, they found me purified in the temple, without any crowd or uproar. But there were some Jews from Asia

Then he gave orders to the centurion for him to be kept in custody but have some freedom, and not to prevent any of his friends from ministering to his needs.

Festus then, three days after arriving in the province, went up to Jerusalem from Caesarea.

And when Paul arrived, the Jews who had come down from Jerusalem stood around him, bringing many serious charges against him, which they could not prove.

So then, all the Jews know my manner of life from my youth up, which from the beginning was spent among my own nation and at Jerusalem.

And that is just what I did in Jerusalem; I not only shut up many of the saints in prison, by authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to death I cast my vote against them.

At midday, O King, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and those who journeyed with me.

rescuing you from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles, to whom I am sending you,

to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.'

To this day I have had the help that comes from God, and so I stand here testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would happen:

that the Christ must suffer, and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to the people and to the Gentiles."

And embarking in a ship from Adramyttium, which was about to sail to the ports along the coast of Asia, we put out to sea, accompanied by Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica.

We put out to sea from there and sailed under the lee of Cyprus, because the winds were against us.

Because the harbor was not suitable to winter in, the majority reached a decision to put out to sea from there, on the chance that somehow they could reach Phoenix, a harbor of Crete, facing southwest and northwest, and spend the winter there.

But before very long there rushed down from the land a violent wind, called the northeaster;

When they had gone a long time without food, then Paul stood up among them and said, "Men, you should have followed my advice and not to have set sail from Crete and incurred this damage and loss.

Fearing that we might run aground somewhere on the rocks, they cast four anchors from the stern and prayed for daybreak.

But as the sailors were trying to escape from the ship and had let down the lifeboat into the sea, on the pretense of laying out anchors from the bow,

Therefore I urge you to take some food; it will give you strength, since not a hair is to perish from the head of any of you."

But the centurion, wanting to bring Paul safely through, kept them from carrying out their plan. He ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first and get to land,

When the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, "No doubt this man is a murderer. Though he has escaped from the sea, justice has not allowed him to live."

From there we sailed around and arrived at Rhegium, and a day later a south wind sprang up, and on the second day we came to Puteoli.

And the brethren, when they heard of us, came from there as far as the Forum of Appius and Three Taverns to meet us. When Paul saw them, he thanked God and took courage.

After three days Paul called together the local leaders of the Jews; and when they had gathered, he said to them, "Brethren, though I had done nothing against our people or the customs of our fathers, yet I was delivered prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans.

They said to him, "We have not received letters from Judea concerning you, and none of the brethren who have come here has reported or spoken anything bad about you.

But we desire to hear from you what your views are; for concerning this sect, we know that everywhere it is spoken against."

When they had appointed a day for Paul, they came to him at his lodging in great numbers. And he explained the matter to them from morning till evening, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus both from the law of Moses and from the prophets.

and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.

To all in Rome who are beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that I often planned to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have some harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles.

For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "The just shall live by faith."

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth,

He is a Jew who is one inwardly; and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, and not by the written code. His praise is not from men but from God.

But now the righteousness of God has been revealed apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it,

For we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

So also David describes the blessedness of the man to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works:

but for us also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord,

Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved through him from the wrath of God.

Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

For he who has died has been freed from sin.

For we know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.

Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but yield yourselves to God as men who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness.

But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,

and, having been set free from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness.

But then what return did you get from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death.

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the return you get is holiness and its end, eternal life.

For a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of her husband.

So then, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and though she marries another man, she is not an adulteress.

Likewise, my brethren, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit to God.

But now, by dying to what once held us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

But sin, finding opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetous desire. For apart from the law sin lies dead.

I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died.

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death.

If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit who dwells in you.

because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God.

Who is he who condemns? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who is also interceding for us.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.

Of them are the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, forever blessed. Amen.

But it is not as though the word of God had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel,

even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles?

For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness.

or "Who will descend into the abyss?" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).

because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.

For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?

And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist have been instituted by God.

For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to have no fear of him who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will have praise from him.

And do this, knowing the hour, that now it is full time for you to wake from sleep. For now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed.