Paul fixed his eyes upon the council and said, "Brothers, with a clear conscience I have done my duty to God up to this very day."

Then Paul said to him, "You white-washed wall, God will strike you! Do you sit as a judge to try me in accordance with the law and yet in violation of the law you order them to strike me?"

The people standing near him said, "Do you mean to insult God's high priest?"

So there was a vociferous yelling until some of the scribes, belonging to the party of the Pharisees, got up and fiercely contended, "We find nothing wrong with this man. Suppose a spirit or angel has really spoken to him!"

Then he called in two of his captains and said to them, "Get two hundred men ready to march to Caesarea, with seventy mounted soldiers and two hundred armed with spears, to leave at nine o'clock tonight."

But I certainly admit this as a fact that in accordance with The Way -- that they call heresy -- I continue to worship the God of my forefathers, and I still believe in everything taught in the law and written in the prophets,

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

So I am always striving to have a conscience that is clear before God and men.

But as he continued to talk about uprightness, self-control, and the coming judgment, Felix became alarmed, and said, "For the present you may go, but when I find a good opportunity, I will send for you."

At the same time he was hoping to get money from Paul, and so he kept on sending for him and talking with him.

Yet, I have nothing definite to write our Sovereign about him. So I have brought him before all of you, especially before you, King Agrippa, to get from your examination something to put in writing.

And now it is for the hope of the promise made by God to our forefathers that I stand here on trial,

Why is it considered incredible by all of you that God should raise the dead?

That was what I did at Jerusalem; yes, I received authority from the high priests and shut behind the prison bars many of God's people. Yes, when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them, and often in all the synagogues

We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice say to me in Hebrew, 'Saul! Saul! Why do you continue to persecute me? It is hurting you to keep on kicking against the goad.'

But get up and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for the very purpose of appointing you my servant and a witness to me of the things which you have seen and those which I shall yet enable you to see.

to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from Satan's power to God, so as to have their sins forgiven and have a possession among those that are consecrated by faith in me.'

but I began to preach first to the people of Damascus and Jerusalem, and all over Judea, and then to the heathen, to repent and turn to God, and to live lives consistent with such repentance.

As I have gotten help from God clear down to this very day, I stand here to testify to high and low alike, without adding a syllable to what Moses and the prophets said should take place,

Paul answered, "In brief or at length, I would to God that not only you but all my hearers today were what I am -- excepting these chains!"

As we passed under the lee of a small island called Cauda, with great difficulty we were able to secure the ship's boat.

After they had gone a long time without any food, then Paul got up among them and said: "Men, you ought to have listened to me and not to have sailed from Crete, and you would have escaped this disaster and loss.

For just last night an angel of God, to whom I belong and whom I serve, stood by my side

and said, "Stop being afraid, Paul. You must stand before the Emperor; and listen! God has graciously given to you the lives of all who are sailing with you.'

So keep up your courage, men, for I have confidence in my God that it will all come out just as I was told.

Then the soldiers cut the ropes that held the boat and let it drift away.

After saying this he took some bread and thanked God for it before them all; then he broke it in pieces and began to eat it.

but the colonel wanted to save Paul, and so he prevented them from carrying out this plan, and ordered all who could swim to jump overboard first and get to land, and the rest to follow,

some on planks and others on various bits of the ship. And thus they all got safely to land.

The natives kept on looking for him to swell up or suddenly drop dead, but after waiting a long time and seeing nothing unusual take place on him, they changed their minds and said that he was a god.

After weighing anchor and leaving there, we arrived at Rhegium. The next day, a south wind began to blow, and the following day we got to Puteoli.

Because the brothers at Rome had heard of our coming, they came as far as Appius' Market and the Three Taverns to meet us, and as soon as Paul caught sight of them, he thanked God and took courage.

So they set a day for him, and came in large numbers to see him at the place where he was lodging, and from morning till night he continued to explain to them the kingdom of God, at the same time giving them his own testimony and trying from the law of Moses and the prophets to convince them about Jesus.

"So you must understand that this message of God's salvation has been sent to the heathen; and they will listen to it!"

yes, he continued to preach to them the kingdom of God, and to teach them about the Lord Jesus Christ, and that with perfect, unfettered freedom of speech.

Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ, called as an apostle, set apart to preach God's good news,

proved to be God's Son in power by the resurrection from the dead -- I mean, Jesus Christ, our Lord,

through whom we have received God's favor and a commission as an apostle in His name to urge upon all the heathen obedience inspired by faith,

to all those in Rome who are God's loved ones, called to be His people: spiritual blessing and peace be yours from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

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

Indeed, my witness is God, whom I serve in my spirit by telling the good news about His Son, that I never fail to mention you every time I pray,

always entreating God that somehow by His will I may some day at last succeed in getting to see you.

So, as far as I can, I am eager to preach the good news to you at Rome, too.

For I am not ashamed of the good news, for it is God's power for the salvation of everyone who trusts, of the Jew first and then of the Greek.

For in the good news God's Way of man's right standing with Him is uncovered, the Way of faith that leads to greater faith, just as the Scripture says, "The upright man must live by faith."

For God's anger from heaven is being uncovered against all the impiety and wickedness of the men who in their wickedness are suppressing the truth;

because what can be known of God is clear to their inner moral sense; for in this way God Himself has shown it to them.

because, although they once knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give Him thanks, but became silly in their senseless speculations, and so their insensible hearts have been shrouded in darkness.

and have transformed the splendor of the immortal God into images in the form of mortal man, birds, beasts, and reptiles.

So God has given them up to sexual impurity, in the evil trend of their heart's desires, so that they degrade their own bodies with one another,

for they had utterly transformed the reality of God into what was unreal, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

This is why God has given them up to degrading passions. For their females have exchanged their natural function for one that is unnatural,

And so, as they did not approve of fully recognizing God any longer, God gave them up to minds that He did not approve, to practices that were improper;

they are secret backbiters, open slanderers, hateful to God, insolent, haughty, boastful; inventors of new forms of evil, undutiful to parents,

Although they know full well God's sentence that those who practice such things deserve to die, yet they not only practice them but even applaud others who do them.

Now we know that God's judgment justly falls on those who practice such sins as these.

And you, who pose as a judge of those who practice such sins and yet continue doing the same yourself, do you for once suppose that you are going to escape the judgment of God?

Do you think so little of the riches of God's kindness, forbearance, and patience, not conscious that His kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

But in your stubbornness and impenitence of heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when the justice of God's judgments will be uncovered.

eternal life to those who patiently continue doing good and striving for glory, honor, and immortality,

But glory, honor, and peace will come to everyone who practices doing good, the Jew first and then the Greek;

for there is no partiality in God's dealings.

For merely hearing the law read does not make men upright with God, but men who practice the law will be recognized as upright.

on the day when God through Jesus Christ, in accordance with the good news I preach, will judge the secrets people have kept.

Now if you call yourself a Jew, and rely on law, and boast about God,

You who boast about the law, do you by breaking it dishonor God?

For, as the Scripture says, the name of God is abused among the heathen because of you.

The real Jew is the man who is a Jew on the inside, and real circumcision is heart-circumcision, a spiritual, not a literal, affair. This man's praise originates, not with men, but with God.

They are great from every point of view. In the first place, the Jews are entrusted with the utterances of God.

What then, if some of them have proved unfaithful? Can their unfaithfulness make null and void God's faithfulness?

Not at all. Let God prove true, though every man be false! As the Scripture says, "That you may prove yourself upright in words you speak, and win your case when you go into court."

But if our wrongdoing brings to light the uprightness of God, what shall we infer? Is it wrong (I am using everyday human terms) for God to inflict punishment?

But, as you say, if the truthfulness of God has redounded to His glory because of my falsehood, why am I still condemned as a sinner?

Why should we not say, as people abusively say of us, and charge us with actually saying, "Let us do evil that good may come from it"? Their condemnation is just.

No one understands, no one is searching for God;

They all have turned aside, all have become corrupt; No one does good, not even one!

There is no reverence for God before their eyes."

Now we know that everything the law says is spoken to those who are under its authority, that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world be held responsible to God.

Because no human creature can be brought into right standing with God by observing the law. For all the law can do is to make men conscious of sin.

But now God's way of giving men right standing with Himself has come to light; a way without connection with the law, and yet a way to which the law and the prophets testify.

God's own way of giving men right standing with Himself is through faith in Jesus Christ. It is for everybody who has faith, for no distinction at all is made.

For everybody has sinned and everybody continues to come short of God's glory,

but anybody may have right standing with God as a free gift of His undeserved favor, through the ransom provided in Christ Jesus.

For God once publicly offered Him in His death as a sacrifice of reconciliation through faith, to demonstrate His own justice (for in His forbearance God had passed over men's former sins);

For we hold that a man is brought into right standing with God by faith, that observance of the law has no connection with it.

Or is He the God of Jews alone? Is He not the God of heathen peoples too? Of course, He is the God of heathen peoples too,

since there is but one God, who will consider the Jews in right standing with Himself, only on condition of their faith, and the heathen peoples on the same condition.

For if he was considered in right standing with God on the condition of what he did, he has something to boast of, but not before God.

For what does the Scripture say? "Abraham put his faith in God, and it was credited to him as right standing with God."

So David, too, describes the happiness of the man to whom God credits right standing with Himself, without the things he does having anything to do with it:

Afterward he received the mark of circumcision as God's seal of his right standing with Him on condition of faith which he had before he was circumcised, that he might be the forefather of all who have faith while still uncircumcised, that they might have their faith credited to them as right standing with God;

For the promise made to Abraham and his descendants, that he should own the world, was not conditioned on the law, but on the right standing he had with God through faith.

So it is conditioned on faith, that it might be in accordance with God's unmerited favor, so that the promise might be in force for all the descendants of Abraham, not only for those who belong to the law party but also for those who belong to the faith group of Abraham. He is the father of us all,

as the Scripture says, "I have made you the father of many nations." That is, the promise is in force in the sight of God in whom he put his faith, the God who can bring the dead to life and can call to Himself the things that do not exist as though they did.

and yet he never staggered in doubt at the promise of God but grew powerful in faith, because he gave the glory to God

Therefore, his faith was credited to him as right standing with God.

it was for our sakes too, for it is going to be credited to us who put our faith in God who raised from the dead our Lord Jesus,

who was given up to death because of our shortcomings and was raised again to give us right standing with God.

Since we have been given right standing with God through faith, then let us continue enjoying peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

by whom we have an introduction through faith into this state of God's favor, in which we safely stand; and let us continue exulting in the hope of enjoying the glorious presence of God.