"Then you are not the Egyptian who in days gone by raised the four thousand assassins and led them out into the desert?"

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

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

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

Till he said that, they had listened to him. But at that they shouted, "Away with such a creature from the earth! He is not fit to live!"

"Brothers," said Paul, "I did not know he was high priest" (for it is written, You must not speak evil of any ruler of your people).

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 do not let them persuade you. More than forty of them are lying in ambush for him, and they have taken a solemn oath neither to eat nor to drink till they have murdered him. They are all ready at this moment, awaiting your consent."

He summoned two of the officers and said, "Get ready by nine o'clock to-night two hundred infantry to march as far as Caesarea, also seventy troopers, and two hundred spearmen."

where I found he was accused of matters relating to their Law but not impeached for any crime that deserved death or imprisonment.

The soldiers, according to their instructions, took Paul and brought him by night to Antipatris.

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,

because it is not more than twelve days, as you can easily ascertain, since I went up to worship at Jerusalem.

and it was in presenting these that I was found within the temple. I was ceremonially pure, I was not mixed up in any mob or riot; no, the trouble was caused by some Jews from Asia,

He gave orders to the officer to have Paul kept in custody but to allow him some freedom and not to prevent any of his own people from rendering him any service.

After staying not more than eight or ten days with them, he went down to Caesarea. Next day he took his seat on the tribunal and ordered Paul to be brought before him.

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!"

I told them Romans were not in the habit of giving up any man until the accused met the accusers face to face and had a chance of defending himself against the impeachment.

but when his accusers stood up they did not charge him with any of the crimes that I had expected.

"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.

I could not find he had done anything that deserved death, so I decided to send him, on his own appeal, to the emperor.

a promise which our twelve tribes hope to gain by serving God earnestly both night and day. And I am actually impeached by Jews for this hope, O king!

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.

Upon this, O king Agrippa, I did not disobey the heavenly vision;

"Your excellency," said Paul to Festus, "I am not mad, I am speaking the sober truth.

Why, the king is well aware of this! To the king I can speak without the slightest hesitation. I do not believe any of it has escaped his notice, for this was not done in a corner.

"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!"

"He might have been released," said Agrippa to Festus, "if he had not appealed to Caesar."

and coasting along it with great difficulty we reached a place called Fair Havens, not far from the town of Lasea.

"Men," said he, "I see this voyage is going to be attended with hardship and serious loss not only to the cargo and the ship but also to our own lives."

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

When the fourteenth night arrived, we were drifting about in the sea of Adria, when the sailors about midnight suspected land was near.

Take some food then, I beg of you; it will keep you alive. You are going to be saved! Not a hair of your heads will perish."

When day broke, they could not recognize what land it was; however, they noticed a creek with a sandy beach, and resolved to see if they could run the ship ashore there.

When the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to each other, "This man must be a murderer! He has escaped the sea, but Justice will not let him live."

However, he shook off the creature into the fire and was not a whit the worse.

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.

Some were convinced by what he said, but the others would not believe.

As they could not agree among themselves, they were turning to go away, when Paul added this one word: "It was an apt word that the holy Spirit spoke by the prophet Isaiah to your fathers,

Though they knew God, they have not glorified him as God nor given thanks to him; they have turned to futile speculations till their ignorant minds grew dark.

though they know God's decree that people who practise such vice deserve death, they not only do it themselves but applaud those who practise it.

Or are you slighting all his wealth of kindness, forbearance, and patience? Do you not know his kindness is meant to make you repent?

For it is not the hearers of the Law who are just in the eyes of God, it is those who obey the Law who will be acquitted,

(If then the uncircumcised observe the requirements of the Law, shall not their uncircumcision be reckoned equivalent to circumcision?

And shall not those who are physically uncircumcised and who fulfil the Law, judge you who are a breaker of the Law for all your written code and circumcision?)

he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual not literal ??praised by God, not by man.

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.

Well now, are we Jews in a better position? Not at all. I have already charged all, Jews as well as Greeks, with being under sin ??10 as it is written, None is righteous, no, not one;

All have swerved, one and all have gone wrong, no one does good, not a single one.

Or is God only the God of Jews? Is he not the God of the Gentiles as well? Surely he is.

Then 'by this faith' we 'cancel the Law'? Not for one moment! We uphold the Law.

This, that if 'Abraham was justified on the score of what he did,' he has something to be proud of. But not to be proud of before God.

Now a worker has his wage counted to him as a due, not as a favour;

Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not count to him.

In what way? When he was a circumcised man or an uncircumcised man? Not when he was circumcised, but when he was uncircumcised.

as well as a father of those circumcised persons who not only share circumcision but walk in the steps of the faith which our father Abraham had as an uncircumcised man.

The promise made to Abraham and his offspring that he should inherit the world, did not reach him through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith.

(What the Law produces is the Wrath, not the promise of God; where there is no law, there is no transgression either.)

That is why all turns upon faith; it is to make the promise a matter of favour, to make it secure for all the offspring, not simply for those who are adherents of the Law but also for those who share the faith of Abraham ??of Abraham who is the father of us all

(as it is written, I have made you a father of many nations). Such a faith implies the presence of the God in whom he believed, a God who makes the dead live and calls into being what does not exist.

And these words counted to him have not been written for him alone

Not only so, but we triumph even in our troubles, knowing that trouble produces endurance,

Why, a man will hardly die for the just ??though one might bring oneself to die, if need be, for a good man.

Not only so, but we triumph in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we now enjoy our reconciliation.

Nevertheless, from Adam to Moses death reigned even over those whose sins were not like Adam's transgression. Adam prefigured Him who was to come,

Sin is not to reign, then, over your mortal bodies and make you obey their passions;

you must not let sin have your members for the service of vice, you must dedicate yourselves to God as men who have been brought from death to life, dedicating your members to God for the service of righteousness.

Sin must have no hold over you, for you live under grace, not under law.

What follows, then? Are we 'to sin, because we live under grace, not under law'? Never!

Do you not know you are the servants of the master you obey, of the master to whom you yield yourselves obedient, whether it is Sin, whose service ends in death, or Obedience, whose service ends in righteousness?

but now we are done with the Law, we have died to what once held us, so that we can serve in a new way, not under the written code as of old but in the Spirit.

What follows, then? That 'the Law is equivalent to sin'? Never! Why, had it not been for the Law, I would never have known what sin meant! Thus I would never have known what it is to covet, unless the Law had said, You must not covet.

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

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.

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

For God has done what the Law, weakened here by the flesh, could not do; by sending his own Son in the guise of sinful flesh, to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,

in order to secure the fulfilment of the Law's requirements in our lives, as we live and move not by the flesh but by the Spirit.

For the interests of the flesh are hostile to God; they do not yield to the law of God (indeed they cannot).

But you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells within you. Anyone who does not possess the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him.

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

For creation was not rendered futile by its own choice, but by the will of Him who thus made it subject,

and not only so, but even we ourselves, who have the Spirit as a foretaste of the future, even we sigh to ourselves as we wait for the redemption of the body that means our full sonship.

We were saved with this hope in view. Now when an object of hope is seen, there is no further need to hope. Who ever hopes for what he sees already?

But if we hope for something that we do not see, we wait for it patiently.

So too the Spirit assists us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray aright, but the Spirit pleads for us with sighs that are beyond words,

The God who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, surely He will give us everything besides!

It is not, of course, as if God's word had failed! Far from it! 'Israel' does not mean everyone who belongs to Israel;

they are not all children of Abraham because they are descended from Abraham. No, it is through Isaac that your offspring shall be reckoned ??8 meaning that instead of God's children being the children born to him by natural descent, it is the children of the Promise who are reckoned as his true offspring.

and though the children were still unborn and had done nothing either good or bad (to confirm the divine purpose in election which depends upon the call of God, not on anything man does),

You see, it is not a question of human will or effort but of the divine mercy.

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;

Indeed, as Isaiah foretold, Had not the Lord of hosts left us with some descendants, we would have fared like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorra.

And why? Simply because Israel has relied not on faith but on what they could do. They have stumbled over the stone that makes men stumble ??33 as it is written, Here I lay a stone in Sion that will make men stumble, even a rock to trip them up; but he who believes in Him will never be disappointed.

I can vouch for their zeal for God; only, it is not zeal with knowledge.

They would not surrender to the righteousness of God, because they were ignorant of his righteousness and therefore essayed to set up a righteousness of their own.

But here is what faith-righteousness says: ??Say not in your heart, 'Who will go up to heaven?' (that is, to bring Christ down).

But how are they to invoke One in whom they do not believe? And how are they to believe in One of whom they have never heard? And how are they ever to hear, without a preacher?

But they have not all given in to the gospel of glad news? No, Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed what they heard from us?

Then, I ask, "Did Israel not understand?" Why, first of all Moses declares, I will make you jealous of a nation that is no nation, I will provoke you to anger over a nation devoid of understanding.