So he got them together, along with the workmen who belonged to similar trades, and said to them: "My men, you know this trade is the source of our wealth.

bearing my testimony, both to Jews and Greeks, of repentance before God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now here I go to Jerusalem under the binding force of the Spirit. What will befall me there, I do not know.

Only, I know this, that in town after town the holy Spirit testifies to me that bonds and troubles are awaiting me.

But then, I set no value on my own life as compared with the joy of finishing my course and fulfilling the commission I received from the Lord Jesus to attest the gospel of the grace of God.

I know to-day that not one of you will ever see my face again ??not one of you among whom I moved as I preached the Reign.

you know yourselves how these hands of mine provided everything for my own needs and for my companions.

Then Paul replied, "What do you mean by weeping and disheartening me? I am ready not only to be bound but also to die at Jerusalem for the sake of the Lord Jesus."

associate yourself with them, purify yourself with them, pay their expenses so that they may be free to have their heads shaved, and then everybody will understand there is nothing in these stories about you, but that, on the contrary, you are guided by obedience to the Law.

Just as he was being taken into the barracks, Paul said to the commander, "May I say a word to you?" "You know Greek!" said the commander.

Paul said, "I am a Jew, a native of Tarsus in Cilicia, the citizen of a famous town. Pray let me speak to the people."

Now as I neared Damascus on my journey, suddenly about noon a brilliant light from heaven flashed round me.

I dropped to the earth and heard a voice saying to me, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?'

'Who are you?' I asked. He said to me, 'I am Jesus the Nazarene, and you are persecuting me.'

(My companions saw the light, but they did not hear the voice of him who talked to me.)

I said, 'What am I to do?' And the Lord said to me, 'Get up and make your way into Damascus; there?you shall be told about all you are destined to do.'

As I could not see owing to the dazzling glare of that light,. my companions took my hand and so I reached Damascus.

came to me and standing beside me said, 'Saul, my brother, regain your sight!' The same moment I regained my sight and looked up at him.

and saw Him saying to me, 'Make haste, leave Jerusalem quickly, for they will not accept your evidence about me.'

But he said to me, 'Go; I will send you afar to the Gentiles ????'"

So the commander went to him and said, "Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?" "Yes," he said.

At this Paul said to him, "You whitewashed wall, God will strike you! You sit there to judge me by the Law, do you? And you break the Law by ordering me to be struck!"

On the following night the Lord stood by Paul and said, "Courage! As you have testified to me at Jerusalem, so you must testify at Rome."

Now you and the Sanhedrin must inform the commander that you propose to investigate this case in detail, so that he may have Paul brought down to you. We will be all ready to kill him on the way down."

So the officer took him to the commander, saying, "The prisoner Paul has summoned me to ask if I would bring this young man to you, as he has something to tell you."

The commander then took him by the hand aside and asked him in private, "What is the news you have for me?"

Then the commander dismissed the youth, bidding him "Tell nobody that you have informed me of this."

Then at a nod from the governor Paul made his reply. "As I know you have administered justice in this nation for a number of years," he said, "I feel encouraged to make my defence,

They never found me arguing with anyone in the temple or causing a riot either in the synagogues or in the city;

they cannot furnish you with any proof of their present charges against me.

After a lapse of several years I came up with alms and offerings for my nation,

who ought to have been here before you with any charge they may have against me.

Failing them, let these men yonder tell what fault they found with my appearance before the Sanhedrin! ??21 unless it was with the single sentence I uttered, when I stood and said, 'It is for the resurrection of the dead that I am on my trial to-day before you.'"

but when he argued about morality, self-mastery, and the future judgment, Felix grew uneasy. "You may go for the present," he said; "when I can find a moment, I will send for you"

Festus replied that Paul would be kept in custody at Caesarea, but that he himself meant to leave for Caesarea before long ??5 "when," he added, "your competent authorities can come down with me and charge the man with whatever crime he has committed."

As Festus wanted to ingratiate himself with the Jews, he asked Paul, "Will you go up to Jerusalem and be tried there by me upon these charges?"

If I am a criminal, if I have done anything that deserves death, I do not object to die; but if there is nothing in any of their charges against me, then no one can give me up to them. I appeal to Caesar!"

When I was at Jerusalem, the high priests and elders of the Jews informed me about him and demanded his condemnation.

Well, the day after they came here along with me, I took my seat on the tribunal without any loss of time. I ordered the man to be brought in,

"King Agrippa and all here present," said Festus, "you see before you a man of whom the entire body of the Jews at Jerusalem and also here have complained to me. They loudly insist he ought not to live any longer.

Only, I have nothing definite to write to the sovereign about him. So I have brought him up before you all, and especially before you, O king Agrippa, in order that I may have something to write as the result of your cross-examination.

For it seems absurd to me to forward a prisoner without notifying the particulars of his charge."

"I consider myself fortunate, king Agrippa, in being able to defend myself to-day before you against all that the Jews charge me with;

for you are well acquainted with all Jewish customs and questions. Pray listen to me then with patience.

How I lived from my youth up among my own nation and at Jerusalem, all that early career of mine, is known to all the Jews.

They know me of old. They know, if they chose to admit it, that as a Pharisee I lived by the principles of the strictest party in our religion.

To-day I am standing my trial for hoping in the promise made by God to our fathers,

I once believed it my duty indeed actively to oppose the name of Jesus the Nazarene.

there was not a synagogue where I did not often punish them and force them to blaspheme; and in my frantic fury I persecuted them even to foreign towns.

when at mid-day on the road, O king, I saw a light from heaven, more dazzling than the sun, flash round me and my fellow-travellers.

We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Hebrew, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? You hurt yourself by kicking at the goad.'

'Who are you?' I asked. And the Lord said, 'I am Jesus, and you are persecuting me.

Now get up and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you in order to appoint you to my service as a witness to what you have seen and to the visions you shall have of me.

that their eyes may be opened and that they may turn from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God, to get remission of their sins and an inheritance among those who are consecrated by faith in me.'

This is why the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to assassinate me.

"At this rate," Agrippa remarked, "it won't be long before you believe you have made a Christian of me!"

"Long or short," said Paul, "I would to God that not only you but all my hearers to-day could be what I am ??barring these chains!"

When they had gone without food for a long time, Paul stood up among them and said, "Men, you should have listened to me and spared yourselves this hardship and loss by refusing to set sail from Crete.

For last night an angel of the God I belong to and serve, stood before me,

They meant to release me after examination, as I was innocent of any crime that deserved death.

But the Jews objected, and so I was obliged to appeal to Caesar ??not that I had any charge to bring against my own nation.

This is my reason for asking to see you and have a word with you. I am wearing this chain because I share Israel's hope."

through whom I have received the favour of my commission to promote obedience to the faith for his sake among all the Gentiles,

First of all, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because the report of your faith is over all the world.

God is my witness, the God whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, how unceasingly I always mention you in my prayers,

asking if I may at last be sped upon my way to you by God's will.

For I do yearn to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift for your strengthening ??12 or, in other words, that I may be encouraged by meeting you, I by your faith and you by mine.

Hence my eagerness to preach the gospel to you in Rome as well.

they exhibit the effect of the Law written on their hearts, their conscience bears them witness, as their moral convictions accuse or it may be defend them.)

on the day when God judges the secret things of men, as my gospel holds, by Jesus Christ.

You say, "If my perfidy serves to make the truthfulness of God redound to his glory, why am I to be judged as a sinner?

Why should we not do evil that good may come out of it?" (which is the calumny attributed to me ??the very thing some people declare I say). Such arguments are rightly condemned.

Whatever the Law says, we know, it says to those who are inside the Law, that every mouth may be shut and all the world made answerable to God;

Now what are we to infer from this? That we are to 'remain on in sin, so that there may be all the more grace'?

Surely you know, my brothers ??for I am speaking to men who know what law means ??that the law has hold over a person only during his lifetime!

It is the same in your case, my brothers. The crucified body of Christ made you dead to the Law, so that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead that we might be fruitful to God.

The command gave an impulse to sin, and sin resulted for me in all manner of covetous desire ??for sin, apart from law, is lifeless.

I lived at one time without law myself, but when the command came home to me, sin sprang to life and I died;

the command that meant life proved death for me.

The command gave an impulse to sin, sin beguiled me and used the command to kill me.

Then did what was meant for my good prove fatal to me? Never! It was sin; sin resulted in death for me by making use of this good thing. This was how sin was to be revealed in its true nature; it was to use the command to become sinful in the extreme.

I cannot understand my own actions; I do not act as I want to act; on the contrary, I do what I detest.

Now, when I act against my wishes, that means I agree that the Law is right.

That being so, it is not I who do the deed but sin that dwells within me.

For in me (that is, in my flesh) no good dwells, I know; the wish is there, but not the power of doing what is right.

I cannot be good as I want to be, and I do wrong against my wishes.

Well, if I act against my wishes, it is not I who do the deed but sin that dwells within me.

So this is my experience of the Law: I want to do what is right, but wrong is all I can manage;

I cordially agree with God's law, so far as my inner self is concerned,

but then I find quite another law in my members which conflicts with the law of my mind and makes me a prisoner to sin's law that resides in my members.

Miserable wretch that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

God will! Thanks be to him through Jesus Christ our Lord! [Move second part of this vers to follow vs 23] (Thus, left to myself, I serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.)

the law of the Spirit brings the life which is in Christ Jesus, and that law has set me free from the law of sin and death.

Well then, my brothers, we owe a duty ??but it is not to the flesh! It is not to live by the flesh!

I am telling the truth in Christ ??it is no lie, my conscience bears me out in the holy Spirit

I could have wished myself accursed and banished from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my natural kinsmen;

Why, scripture says to Pharaoh, It was for this that I raised you up, to display my power in you, and to spread news of my name over all the earth.

But who are you, my man, to speak back to God? Is something a man has moulded to ask him who has moulded it, "Why did you make me like this?"

As indeed he says in Hosea, Those who were no people of mine, I will call 'my People,' and her 'beloved' who was not beloved;

Oh for their salvation, brothers! That is my heart's desire and prayer to God!