who have endangered their very lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who are themselves bringing you the same message by word of mouth.

After a while Paul said to Barnabas, "Suppose we now revisit the brethren in the various towns in which we have made known the Lord's Message--to see whether they are prospering!"

while Paul deemed it undesirable to have as their companion one who had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not gone on with them to the work.

So the jailer brought Paul word, saying, "The praetors have sent orders for you to be released. Now therefore you can go, and proceed on your way in peace."

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."

But, failing to find them, they dragged Jason and some of the other brethren before the magistrates of the city, loudly accusing them. "These men," they said, "who have raised a tumult throughout the Empire, have come here also.

For it is in closest union with Him that we live and move and have our being; as in fact some of the poets in repute among yourselves have said, 'For we are also His offspring.'

I am with you, and no one shall attack you to injure you; for I have very many people in this city."

But, when Paul was about to begin his defence, Gallio said to the Jews, "If it had been some wrongful act or piece of cunning knavery I might reasonably have listened to you Jews.

"Jesus I know," the evil spirit answered, "and Paul I have heard of, but who are you?"

Then Paul would have liked to go in and address the people, but the disciples would not let him do so.

For you have brought these men here, who are neither robbers of temples nor blasphemers of our goddess.

If, however, Demetrius and the mechanics who support his contention have a grievance against any one, there are Assize-days and there are Proconsuls: let the persons interested accuse one another.

But if you desire anything further, it will have to be settled in the regular assembly.

"And now, I know that none of you among whom I have gone in and out proclaiming the coming of the Kingdom will any longer see my face.

For I have not shrunk from declaring to you God's whole truth.

No one's silver or gold or clothing have I coveted.

You yourselves know that these hands of mine have provided for my own necessities and for the people with me.

In all things I have set you an example, showing you that, by working as I do, you ought to help the weak, and to bear in mind the words of the Lord Jesus, how He Himself said, "'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'"

And they, when they had heard his statement, gave the glory to God. Then they said, "You see, brother, how many tens of thousands of Jews there are among those who have accepted the faith, and they are all zealous upholders of the Law.

Now what they have been repeatedly told about you is that you teach all the Jews among the Gentiles to abandon Moses, and that you forbid them to circumcise their children or observe old-established customs.

What then ought you to do? They are sure to hear that you have come to Jerusalem;

so do this which we now tell you. We have four men here who have a vow resting on them.

But as for the Gentiles who have accepted the faith, we have communicated to them our decision that they are carefully to abstain from anything sacrificed to an idol, from blood, from what is strangled, and from fornication."

For you shall be a witness for Him, to all men, of what you have seen and heard.

Then Paul, fixing a steady gaze on the Sanhedrin, said, "Brethren, it is with a perfectly clear conscience that I have discharged my duties before God up to this day."

The following night the Lord came and stood at Paul's side, and said, "Be of good courage, for as you have borne faithful witness about me in Jerusalem, so you must also bear witness in Rome."

They went to the High Priests and Elders and said to them, "We have bound ourselves under a heavy curse to take no food till we have killed Paul.

Then the Tribune, taking him by the arm, withdrew out of the hearing of others and asked him, "What have you to tell me?"

"The Jews," he replied, "have agreed to request you to bring Paul down to the Sanhedrin to-morrow for the purpose of making yourself more accurately acquainted with the case.

I beg you not to comply; for more than forty men among them are lying in wait for him, who have solemnly vowed that they will neither eat nor drink till they have assassinated him; and even now they are ready, in anticipation of receiving that promise of you."

So the Tribune sent the youth home, cautioning him. "Do not let any one know that you have given me this information," he said.

But now that I have received information of an intended attack upon him, I immediately send him to you, directing his accusers also to state before you the case they have against him."

he said, "I will hear all you have to say, when your accusers also have come." And he ordered him to be detained in custody in Herod's Palace.

For we have found this man Paul a source of mischief and a disturber of the peace among all the Jews throughout the Empire, and a ringleader in the heresy of the Nazarenes.

Then, at a sign from the Governor, Paul answered, "Knowing, Sir, that for many years you have administered justice to this nation, I cheerfully make my defence.

For you have it in your power to ascertain that it is not more than twelve days ago that I went up to worship in Jerusalem;

This too is my own earnest endeavour--always to have a clear conscience in relation to God and man.

They ought to have been here before you, and to have been my prosecutors, if they have any charge to bring against me.

asking it as a favour, to Paul's prejudice--to have him brought to Jerusalem. They were planning an ambush to kill him on the way.

But, in reply, Paul said, "Neither against the Jewish Law, nor against the Temple, nor against Caesar, have I committed any offence whatever."

"I am standing before Caesar's tribunal," replied Paul, "where alone I ought to be tried. The Jews have no real ground of complaint against me, as in fact you yourself are beginning to see more clearly.

If, however, I have done wrong and have committed any offence for which I deserve to die, I do not ask to be excused that penalty. But if there is no truth in what these men allege against me, no one has the right to give me up to them as a favour. I appeal to Caesar."

Then, after conferring with the Council, Festus replied, "To Caesar you have appealed: to Caesar you shall go."

But when Paul appealed to have his case kept for the Emperor's decision, I ordered him to be kept in prison until I could send him up to Caesar."

I could not discover that he had done anything for which he deserved to die; but as he has himself appealed to the Emperor, I have decided to send him to Rome.

I have nothing very definite, however, to tell our Sovereign about him. So I have brought the man before you all--and especially before you, King Agrippa--that after he has been examined I may find something which I can put into writing.

Then Agrippa said to Paul, "You have permission to speak about yourself." So Paul, with outstretched arm, proceeded to make his defence.

"The kind of life I have lived from my youth upwards, as exemplified in my early days among my nation and in Jerusalem, is known to all the Jews.

the promise which our twelve tribes, worshipping day and night with intense devotedness, hope to have made good to them. It is on the subject of this hope, Sir, that I am accused by the Jews.

But rise, and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for the very purpose of appointing you My servant and My witness both as to the things you have already seen and as to those in which I will appear to you.

Having, however, obtained the help which is from God, I have stood firm until now, and have solemnly exhorted rich and poor alike, saying nothing except what the Prophets and Moses predicted as soon to happen,

For the King, to whom I speak freely, knows about these matters. I am not to be persuaded that any detail of them has escaped his notice; for these things have not been done in a corner.

And Agrippa said to Festus, "He might have been set at liberty, if he had not appealed to Caesar."

When for a long time they had taken but little food, Paul, standing up among them, said, "Sirs, you ought to have listened to me and not have sailed from Crete. You would then have escaped this suffering and loss.

"Therefore, Sirs, take courage; for I believe God, and am convinced that things will happen exactly as I have been told.

And continually, up till daybreak, Paul kept urging all on board to take some food. "This is the fourteenth day," he said, "that you have been anxiously waiting for the storm to cease, and have fasted, eating little or nothing.

For these reasons, then, I have invited you here, that I might see you and speak to you; for it is for the sake of Him who is the hope of Israel that this chain hangs upon me."

"For our part," they replied, "we have not received any letters from Judaea about you, nor have any of our countrymen come here and reported or stated anything to your disadvantage.

For this people's mind has grown callous, their hearing has become dull, and their eyes they have closed; to prevent their ever seeing with their eyes, or hearing with their ears, or understanding with their minds, and turning back, so that I might cure them.'

through whom we have received grace and Apostleship in His service in order to win men to obedience to the faith, among all Gentile peoples,

among whom you also, called, as you have been, to belong to Jesus Christ, are numbered:

And I desire you to know, brethren, that I have many a time intended to come to you--though until now I have been disappointed--in order that among you also I might gather some fruit from my labours, as I have already done among the rest of the Gentile nations.

For, from the very creation of the world, His invisible perfections--namely His eternal power and divine nature--have been rendered intelligible and clearly visible by His works, so that these men are without excuse.

And just as they had refused to continue to have a full knowledge of God, so it was to utterly worthless minds that God gave them up, for them to do things which should not be done.

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

For when Gentiles who have no Law obey by natural instinct the commands of the Law, they, without having a Law, are a Law to themselves;

on the day when God will judge the secrets of men's lives by Jesus Christ, as declared in the Good News as I have taught it.

and have persuaded yourself that, as for you, you are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness,

Circumcision does indeed profit, if you obey the Law; but if you are a Law-breaker, the fact that you have been circumcised counts for nothing.

For what if some Jews have proved unfaithful? Shall their faithlessness render God's faithfulness worthless?

What then? Are we Jews more highly estimated than they? Not in the least; for we have already charged all Jews and Gentiles alike with being in thraldom to sin.

All have turned aside from the right path; they have every one of them become corrupt. There is no one who does what is right--no, not so much as one."

"Their throats resemble an opened grave; with their tongues they have been talking deceitfully." "The venom of vipers lies hidden behind their lips."

and the way to peace they have not known."

for all alike have sinned, and all consciously come short of the glory of God,

"Blessed," he says, "are those whose iniquities have been forgiven, and whose sins have been covered over.

so that the promise should be made sure to all Abraham's true descendants; not merely to those who are righteous through the Law, but to those who are righteous through a faith like that of Abraham. Thus in the sight of God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and makes reference to things that do not exist, as though they did, Abraham is the forefather of all of us. As it is written, "I have appointed you to be the forefather of many nations."

through whom also, as the result of faith, we have obtained an introduction into that state of favour with God in which we stand, and we exult in hope of some day sharing in God's glory.

Why, it is scarcely conceivable that any one would die for a simply just man, although for a good and lovable man perhaps some one, here and there, will have the courage even to lay down his life.

If therefore we have now been pronounced free from guilt through His blood, much more shall we be delivered from God's anger through Him.

And not only so, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now obtained that reconciliation.

Yet Death reigned as king from Adam to Moses even over those who had not sinned, as Adam did, against Law. And in Adam we have a type of Him whose coming was still future.

But God's free gift immeasurably outweighs the transgression. For if through the transgression of the one individual the mass of mankind have died, infinitely greater is the generosity with which God's grace, and the gift given in His grace which found expression in the one man Jesus Christ, have been bestowed on the mass of mankind.

No, indeed; how shall we who have died to sin, live in it any longer?

And do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?

For since we have become one with Him by sharing in His death, we shall also be one with Him by sharing in His resurrection.

But, seeing that we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him;

and no longer lend your faculties as unrighteous weapons for Sin to use. On the contrary surrender your very selves to God as living men who have risen from the dead, and surrender your several faculties to God, to be used as weapons to maintain the right.

But thanks be to God that though you were once in thraldom to Sin, you have now yielded a hearty obedience to that system of truth in which you have been instructed.

But now that you have been set free from the tyranny of Sin, and have become the bondservants of God, you have your reward in being made holy, and you have the Life of the Ages as the final result.

But seeing that we have died to that which once held us in bondage, the Law has now no hold over us, so that we render a service which, instead of being old and formal, is new and spiritual.

What follows? Is the Law itself a sinful thing? No, indeed; on the contrary, unless I had been taught by the Law, I should have known nothing of sin as sin. For instance, I should not have known what covetousness is, if the Law had not repeatedly said, "Thou shalt not covet."

You have not for the second time acquired the consciousness of being--a consciousness which fills you with terror. But you have acquired a deep inward conviction of having been adopted as sons--a conviction which prompts us to cry aloud, "Abba! our Father!"

It is *in hope* that we have been saved. But an object of hope is such no longer when it is present to view; for when a man has a thing before his eyes, how can he be said to hope for it?

As it stands written in the Scripture, "For Thy sake they are, all day long, trying to kill us. We have been looked upon as sheep destined for slaughter."

when I declare that I have deep grief and unceasing anguish of heart.

To them belongs recognition as God's sons, and they have His glorious Presence and the Covenants, and the giving of the Law, and the Temple service, and the ancient Promises.

Not however that God's word has failed; for all who have sprung from Israel do not count as Israel,