And they preached the word of God to him, with all who were in his house; and he took them at that hour of the night and washed their wounds, and he himself and all who were in his house were baptized on the spot; and he took them into his house and set a table before them, and rejoiced with all his household that he had come to believe in God.
When day came the chief magistrates sent their lie- tors, saying: Release those men. The warden brought the message to Paul, to this effect: The chief magistrates have sent to have you released; so now come out and go on your way in peace. But Paul said to them: After lashing us publicly without trial, us who are Roman citizens, they threw us in prison. And now they are putting us out secretly? Not so; let them come themselves and conduct us out. The lictors reported these words to the chief magistrates; and they were frightened when they heard that they were Romans, and carne and apologized and conducted them out and asked them to leave the city. And they left the prison and went to Lydia's house; and they saw the brothers and encouraged them and left.
11 Making their way through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. And following his custom, Paul visited them and for three sabbaths lectured to them on the scriptures, demonstrating and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead, and saying, This is the Christ, Jesus, whom I proclaim to you. And some of them believed and attached themselves to Paul and Silas, a great number of Greek believers, and not a few prorni- nent women. But the Jews became jealous, and they enlisted the help of some tough men from the market place rabble and started a riot and threw the city into confusion; and they besieged the house of Jason and demanded that he bring them out before the people. But not finding them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the authorities, shouting: These men who are upsetting the Empire are here now, and Jason has taken them in; and all of them are acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another who is King, Jesus. And they stirred up the mob and the authorities, but after getting bail from Jason and the others they let them go.
The brothers immediately took Paul and Silas to Be- roea by night, and arriving there they went to the synagogue of the Jews. These people were more honorable than the ones in Thessalonica, and they received the word in all eagerness, studying the scriptures day by day to see if this were really so. And many of them believed, and not a few of the prominent Greek women and men. But when the Jews of Thessalonica learned that the word of God had been proclaimed in Beroea by Paul, they went there also, upheaving and disturbing the masses. But then the brothers promptly sent Paul on his way to the sea; and Silas and Timothy stayed there. Then those who had Paul in their charge brought him to Athens and, after receiving his instructions to Silas and Timothy that they should come to him with all speed, they returned.
In Athens, while Paul was awaiting them, his spirit was exasperated within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. And he would have discussions with the Jews and the worshippers in the synagogue and in the market place every day with anyone he happened to meet. And some of the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers encountered him, and some of them said: What might this vagabond be trying to tell us? And others said: He seems to be an announcer of foreign divinities. Because he brought the gospel of Jesus and the resurrection. So they took him in hand and led him up to the Areopagus, saying: Can we discover what is this new teaching of which you are telling us? You are bringing something new to our ears. So we wish to learn what this means. All the Athenians and their visitors from abroad spent their time on nothing except saying or hearing something novel.
Then Paul, standing on the middle of the Areopagus, said: Gentlemen of Athens, I perceive that you are in every way more god-fearing than others; for as I went about and observed your sanctuaries I even found an altar inscribed: To the Unknown God. What you worship, without knowing what it is, this is what I proclaim to you. God, who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in Hand-built temples, nor, as one who needs anything, is he ministered to by human hands, since he himself gave life and breath and everything else to all. And out of one he made every nation of men to live on every face of the earth, decreeing the seasons in their order and the boundaries of their habitations; and he made them search for God, to try to feel their way to him, since indeed he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and are, since, as some of your own poets have said: We are his offspring.
Being then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to believe that divinity is like gold or silver or stone, the carving of art and the thought of man. God, then, overlooking our times of ignorance, now announces to men that all men everywhere must repent; because he has set a day on which he will judge the inhabited world in justice through a man whom he has appointed to do this, after giving sure proof to all by resurrecting him from the dead.
When they heard about the resurrection from the dead, some scoffed but some said: We will listen to you again concerning this matter.
So Paul went from their midst; but some men attached themselves to him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite and his wife, who was n^ed Damaris, and some others with them.
1 After that he left Athens and went to Corinth. There he found a Jew named Aquila, from Pontus by origin, who had recently come from Italy with his wife, Pris- cilla, because Claudius had decreed that all Jews must leave Rome. He went to them and, because they shared the same craft, he stayed with them and they all worked together. Their craft was tent-making. And every sabbath he would speak in the synagogue, and he converted both Jews and Greeks.
But when Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul gave himself over to preaching the word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. And when they opposed him and abused him, he shook out his clothing and said: Your blood be upon your own heads. My hands are clean. From now on I shall go to the Gentiles. And leaving the place, he went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, who worshipped God, and whose house was next to the synagogue. And Crispus, the head of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, together with all his household; and many Corinthians when they heard him believed and were baptized. And in a vision by night the
Lord said to Paul: Do not fear, but speak on and do not be silent; because I am with you, and no one will attack you to do you harm; because I have many people in this city.
And he stayed for a year and six months teaching them the word of God. But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaea, the Jews made a concerted attack on Paul and brought him to the tribunal, saying: This man persuades people to worship God contrary to the law. But as Paul was about to open his mouth to speak, Gallio said to the Jews: If there were some crime or flagrant villainy, you Jews, I would reasonably have put up with you; but if your complaints concern a word or names or the law that you have, you must see to it yourselves. I do not wish to be judge of these matters. And he drove them from the tribunal. Then they all seized on Sosthenes, the head of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the tribunal; but none of all this was of any concern to Gallio.
Paul stayed on for a number of days and then, after saying farewell to the brothers, sailed for Syria, and Pris- cilla and Aquila went with him, and he cut his hair short in Cenchreae, for he had taken a vow. They put in at Ephesus, and he left the others there and went himself into the synagogue and talked with the Jews. And when they asked him to stay for a longer time, he refused, but after saying farewell and telling them: I will return to you again, God willing, he sailed from Ephesus; and went ashore at Caesarea and went up and greeted the church, and went down to Antioch, and after spending some time there left; and passed from place to place through the territory of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening the disciples.
There was a certain Jew, Apollos by name, an Alexandrian by origin, who came to Ephesus: an el
oquent man, strong in the scriptures. This man was a student in the way of the Lord and, seething with enthusiasm, he spoke and taught accurately the facts about Jesus, but he knew only the baptism of John. And he began to speak freely in the synagogue; but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him more exactly about the Way of God. When he wished to go to Achaea, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples that they should accept him. And when he arrived, he was very helpful to those who, through grace, had become believers; for he strenuously confuted the Jews, proving in public, through the scriptures, that the Christ was Jesus.
1 While Apollos was in Corinth, it happened that Paul, after traveling through the interior, came to Ephesus, and there found some disciples and said to them: When you believed, did you receive the Holy Spirit? They said: We have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit. Paul said: Then in what were you baptized? They answered: In the baptism of John. Paul said: John baptized in the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was coming after him, that is, in Jesus. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus; and after Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came over them, and they began to speak with tongues and prophesy. There were about twelve men in all.
Then he went into the synagogue and spoke freely for three months, lecturing and arguing about the Kingdom of God. But when some men began to scoff and disbelieve, speaking ill of the Way of God before the congregation, Paul left them and took away his disciples, lecturing every day in the school of Tyrannus. And this went on for two years, so that all the inhabitants of Asia heard the word of the Lord, Jews and Greeks alike. And God displayed no ordinary powers through the hands of Paul, so that even if only handkerchiefs or towels he had touched were brought to the sick, their diseases would leave them and the evil spirits would go out of them. And some of the traveling Jewish exorcists tried n^ing the n^e of the Lord Jesus to those who possessed evil spirits, saying: I adjure you by Jesus, the one Paul preaches. There were seven sons of a certain Sceva, a Jewish high priest, who did this. But the evil spirit answered and said to them: Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you? And the man who had been controlled by the evil spirit leaped upon these men and overpowered and defeated them so that they fled from the house naked and bleeding. This became known to all the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, and fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was exalted. And many of those who had come to believe began confessing and reporting their magical practices, and a number of those who had been practicing magic brought their books together into one place and burned them in the sight of all; and they counted the value of these and found that they came to fifty thousand pieces of silver. Thus powerfully did the word of the Lord grow and gain strength.
After these matters were concluded, Paul took it into his mind to make a tour through Macedonia and Achaea and go on to Jerusalem, sa^ng: After I have been there,
I must also see Rome. Then he sent off two of his assistants, Timothy and Erastus, to Macedonia, and himself stayed for some time in Asia.
And at that time there arose a considerable disturbance over the Way of the Lord. For there was a certain man, Demetrius by name, a silversmith, who built shrines of Artemis and so gave considerable employment to the craftsmen. He assembled those and others who did this kind of work, and said: My men, you understand that our prosperity comes from this work; and you can see, and hear, that this man Paul has converted by his persuasion a large crowd not only in Ephesus but in almost all of Asia, saying that gods who are made by hands are not gods. This threatens not only to make our trade fall into disrepute, but also to make the temple of the great goddess Artemis be set at naught, and to put her, whom all Asia and the world worships, in danger of being brought down from her greatness. When they heard this, they were filled with anger and shouted: Great is Artemis of the Ephesians. And the whole city was filled with confusion, and they made a concerted rush to the theater, seizing and carrying along with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians and traveling companions of Paul. Paul wanted to go before the people, but the disciples would not let him; and also some of the Asiarchs who were friendly to Paul sent to him and urged him not to present himself in the theater.
Now some were shouting one thing and some another, for the meeting was in confusion, and most people did not know why they had been assembled. And some from the crowd told Alexander what to say; the Jews had pushed him forward. And Alexander, gesturing with his hand, tried to speak in defense before the people; but when they recognized that he was a Jew, a single voice c^e from them all as they shouted for something like two hours: Great is Artemis of the Ephesians. But the secretary of the city quieted the crowd and said: Men of Ephesus, what living person does not know that the city of the Ephesians is the temple keeper of the great Artemis and the image that fell from heaven? Since all that is indisputable, you should remain quiet and not do anything reckless. For you brought these men here when they had neither blasphemed against our goddess nor injured her temple. So now if Demetrius and his fellow craftsmen have anything to say against anyone, the courts are in session and the proconsuls are there, let them bring their charges. If you demand anything more, it will be settled in the regular assembly. For we are in danger of being charged with lawlessness over today; since there is no excuse we can give for this disturbance. And so saying, he closed the meeting.
After the excitement was over, Paul sent for his disciples and encouraged them and said his farewells and set off on his journey to Macedonia. And after passing through those parts and encouraging the people with much speaking, he arrived in Greece. When he had spent three months there and was about to sail to Syria, he decided to return by way of Macedonia because of a plot against him by the Jews. Along with him went Sopater the son of Pyrrhus, from Beroea, Aristarchus and Secun- dus of the Thessalonians, Gaius and Timothy of Derbe, and the Asians Tychicus and Trophimus. These went on ahead and awaited us at Troas; and we sailed from Phi- lippi after the days of Unleavened Bread, and we came to them at Troas after five days, and for seven days we remained there.
On the first day of the week when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul was discoursing, and since he intended to leave the next day, he drew out his discourse until midnight. There were plenty of lamps in the upper room where we were gathered together. But a young man named Eutychus was sitting in the window, and he fell into a deep sleep as Paul talked on at length, and overcome as he was by sleep, he fell all the way from the third story and was picked up dead. Paul went down and lay over him and embraced him, then said: Do not be alarmed, his life is there within him. Then he went up and broke bread and ate it and talked until sunrise, and then left. And they took away the boy, and he was alive; and they were greatly comforted.
We went on board the ship and sailed for Assos, intending to take Paul on board there, for so he had directed; he himself was going to go there by land. And when he met us at Assos, we took him aboard and went to Mitylene, and sailed from there, and on the next day we were off Chios; on the day after that we crossed over to Samos, and on the following day came to Miletus. For Paul had decided to bypass Ephesus so as not to lose time in Asia, since he was hastening to be in Jerusalem on the day of the Pentecost if that might be possible.
From Miletus he sent to Ephesus and summoned the elders of the church. And when they were in his presence he said to them: You know well, from the first day I set foot in Asia, what I was like all the time I was with you, serving the Lord in all humility and through the tears and trials that befell me from the plots of the Jews against me; how I never gave up doing what was to your advantage, bringing the news to you and teaching you, both in public and in your houses, attesting, to Jews and Hellenes alike, repentance and faith in our
Lord Jesus. And now, behold, I am on my way to Jerusalem, in bondage to the Holy Spirit; not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me. But I do not count my life as of any great value to me, so long as I finish my course and the ministry which I accepted from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. And now, behold, I know that you will never see my face again: not any of you among whom I went about preaching the Kingdom.
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