Day 80 – The Trip to Rome

₁Three days after Festus arrived in the province, he went from Caesarea to Jerusalem, ₂where the chief priests and the Jewish leaders brought their charges against Paul. They begged Festus ₃to do them the favour of bringing Paul to Jerusalem, for they had made a plot to kill him on the way. ₄Festus answered, “Paul is being kept a prisoner in Caesarea, and I myself will be going back there soon. ₅Let your leaders go to Caesarea with me and accuse the man if he has done anything wrong.”

₆Festus spent another eight or ten days with them and then went to Caesarea. On the next day he sat down in the court of judgement and ordered Paul to be brought in. ₇When Paul arrived, the Jews who had come from Jerusalem stood round him and started making many serious charges against him, which they were not able to prove. ₈But Paul defended himself: “I have done nothing wrong against the Law of the Jews or against the Temple or against the Roman Emperor.”

₉But Festus wanted to gain favour with the Jews, so he asked Paul, “Would you be willing to go to Jerusalem and be tried on these charges before me there?”

₁₀Paul said, “I am standing before the Emperor's own court of judgement, where I should be tried. I have done no wrong to the Jews, as you yourself well know. ₁₁If I have broken the law and done something for which I deserve the death penalty, I do not ask to escape it. But if there is no truth in the charges they bring against me, no one can hand me over to them. I appeal to the Emperor.”

₁₂Then Festus, after conferring with his advisers, answered, “You have appealed to the Emperor, so to the Emperor you will go.”

₁₃Some time later King Agrippa and Bernice came to Caesarea to pay a visit of welcome to Festus. ₁₄After they had been there several days, Festus explained Paul's situation to the king: “There is a man here who was left a prisoner by Felix; ₁₅and when I went to Jerusalem, the Jewish chief priests and elders brought charges against him and asked me to condemn him. ₁₆But I told them that we Romans are not in the habit of handing over anyone accused of a crime before he has met his accusers face to face and has had the chance of defending himself against the accusation. ₁₇When they came here, then, I lost no time, but on the very next day I sat in the court and ordered the man to be brought in. ₁₈His opponents stood up, but they did not accuse him of any of the evil crimes that I thought they would. ₁₉All they had were some arguments with him about their own religion and about a man named Jesus, who has died; but Paul claims that he is alive. ₂₀I was undecided about how I could get information on these matters, so I asked Paul if he would be willing to go to Jerusalem and be tried there on these charges. ₂₁But Paul appealed; he asked to be kept under guard and to let the Emperor decide his case. So I gave orders for him to be kept under guard until I could send him to the Emperor.”

₂₂Agrippa said to Festus, “I would like to hear this man myself.”

“You will hear him tomorrow,” Festus answered.

₂₃The next day Agrippa and Bernice came with great pomp and ceremony and entered the audience hall with the military chiefs and the leading men of the city. Festus gave the order, and Paul was brought in. ₂₄Festus said, “King Agrippa and all who are here with us: You see this man against whom all the Jewish people, both here and in Jerusalem, have brought complaints to me. They scream that he should not live any longer. ₂₅But I could not find that he had done anything for which he deserved the death sentence. And since he himself made an appeal to the Emperor, I have decided to send him. ₂₆But I have nothing definite about him to write to the Emperor. So I have brought him here before you — and especially before you, King Agrippa! — so that, after investigating his case, I may have something to write. ₂₇For it seems unreasonable to me to send a prisoner without clearly indicating the charges against him.”

₁Agrippa said to Paul, “You have permission to speak on your own behalf.” Paul stretched out his hand and defended himself as follows:

₂“King Agrippa! I consider myself fortunate that today I am to defend myself before you from all the things these Jews accuse me of, ₃particularly since you know so well all the Jewish customs and disputes. I ask you, then, to listen to me with patience.

₄“All the Jews know how I have lived ever since I was young. They know how I have spent my whole life, at first in my own country and then in Jerusalem. ₅They have always known, if they are willing to testify, that from the very first I have lived as a member of the strictest party of our religion, the Pharisees. ₆And now I stand here to be tried because of the hope I have in the promise that God made to our ancestors — ₇the very thing that the twelve tribes of our people hope to receive, as they worship God day and night. And it is because of this hope, Your Majesty, that I am being accused by these Jews! ₈Why do you who are here find it impossible to believe that God raises the dead?

₉“I myself thought that I should do everything I could against the cause of Jesus of Nazareth. ₁₀That is what I did in Jerusalem. I received authority from the chief priests and put many of God's people in prison; and when they were sentenced to death, I also voted against them. ₁₁Many times I had them punished in the synagogues and tried to make them deny their faith. I was so furious with them that I even went to foreign cities to persecute them.

₁₂“It was for this purpose that I went to Damascus with authority and orders from the chief priests. ₁₃It was on the road at midday, Your Majesty, that I saw a light much brighter than the sun, coming from the sky and shining round me and the men travelling with me. ₁₄All of us fell to the ground, and I heard a voice say to me in Hebrew, ‘Saul, Saul! Why are you persecuting me? You are hurting yourself by hitting back, like an ox kicking against its owner's stick.’ ₁₅‘Who are you, Lord?’ I asked. And the Lord answered, ‘I am Jesus, whom you persecute. ₁₆But get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as my servant. You are to tell others what you have seen of me today and what I will show you in the future. ₁₇I will rescue you from the people of Israel and from the Gentiles to whom I will send you. ₁₈You are to open their eyes and turn them from the darkness to the light and from the power of Satan to God, so that through their faith in me they will have their sins forgiven and receive their place among God's chosen people.’

₁₉“And so, King Agrippa, I did not disobey the vision I had from heaven. ₂₀First in Damascus and in Jerusalem and then in all Judea and among the Gentiles, I preached that they must repent of their sins and turn to God and do the things that would show they had repented. ₂₁It was for this reason that these Jews seized me while I was in the Temple, and they tried to kill me. ₂₂But to this very day I have been helped by God, and so I stand here giving my witness to all, to small and great alike. What I say is the very same thing which the prophets and Moses said was going to happen: ₂₃that the Messiah must suffer and be the first one to rise from death, to announce the light of salvation to the Jews and to the Gentiles.”

₂₄As Paul defended himself in this way, Festus shouted at him, “You are mad, Paul! Your great learning is driving you mad!”

₂₅Paul answered, “I am not mad, Your Excellency! I am speaking the sober truth. ₂₆King Agrippa! I can speak to you with all boldness, because you know about these things. I am sure that you have taken notice of every one of them, for this thing has not happened hidden away in a corner. ₂₇King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you do!”

₂₈Agrippa said to Paul, “In this short time do you think you will make me a Christian?”

₂₉“Whether a short time or a long time,” Paul answered, “my prayer to God is that you and all the rest of you who are listening to me today might become what I am — except, of course, for these chains!”

₃₀Then the king, the governor, Bernice, and all the others got up, ₃₁and after leaving they said to each other, “This man has not done anything for which he should die or be put in prison.” ₃₂And Agrippa said to Festus, “This man could have been released if he had not appealed to the Emperor.”

₁When it was decided that we should sail to Italy, they handed Paul and some other prisoners over to Julius, an officer in the Roman regiment called “The Emperor's Regiment”. ₂We went aboard a ship from Adramyttium, which was ready to leave for the seaports of the province of Asia, and we sailed away. Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica, was with us. ₃The next day we arrived at Sidon. Julius was kind to Paul and allowed him to go and see his friends, to be given what he needed. ₄We went on from there, and because the winds were blowing against us, we sailed on the sheltered side of the island of Cyprus. ₅We crossed over the sea off Cilicia and Pamphylia and came to Myra in Lycia. ₆There the officer found a ship from Alexandria that was going to sail for Italy, so he put us aboard.

₇We sailed slowly for several days and with great difficulty finally arrived off the town of Cnidus. The wind would not let us go any further in that direction, so we sailed down the sheltered side of the island of Crete, passing by Cape Salmone. ₈We kept close to the coast and with great difficulty came to a place called Safe Harbours, not far from the town of Lasea.

₉We spent a long time there, until it became dangerous to continue the voyage, for by now the Day of Atonement was already past. So Paul gave them this advice: ₁₀“Men, I see that our voyage from here on will be dangerous; there will be great damage to the cargo and to the ship, and loss of life as well.” ₁₁But the army officer was convinced by what the captain and the owner of the ship said, and not by what Paul said. ₁₂The harbour was not a good one to spend the winter in; so most people were in favour of putting out to sea and trying to reach Phoenix, if possible, in order to spend the winter there. Phoenix is a harbour in Crete that faces south-west and north-west.

₁₃A soft wind from the south began to blow, and the men thought that they could carry out their plan, so they pulled up the anchor and sailed as close as possible along the coast of Crete. ₁₄But soon a very strong wind — the one called “North-easter” — blew down from the island. ₁₅It hit the ship, and since it was impossible to keep the ship headed into the wind, we gave up trying and let it be carried along by the wind. ₁₆We got some shelter when we passed to the south of the little island of Cauda. There, with some difficulty, we managed to make the ship's boat secure. ₁₇They pulled it aboard and then fastened some ropes tight round the ship. They were afraid that they might run into the sandbanks off the coast of Libya, so they lowered the sail and let the ship be carried by the wind. ₁₈The violent storm continued, so on the next day they began to throw some of the ship's cargo overboard, ₁₉and on the following day they threw part of the ship's equipment overboard. ₂₀For many days we could not see the sun or the stars, and the wind kept on blowing very hard. We finally gave up all hope of being saved.

₂₁After those on board had gone a long time without food, Paul stood before them and said, “Men, you should have listened to me and not have sailed from Crete; then we would have avoided all this damage and loss. ₂₂But now I beg you, take heart! Not one of you will lose your life; only the ship will be lost. ₂₃For last night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship came to me ₂₄and said, ‘Don't be afraid, Paul! You must stand before the Emperor. And God in his goodness to you has spared the lives of all those who are sailing with you.’ ₂₅So take heart, men! For I trust in God that it will be just as I was told. ₂₆But we will be driven ashore on some island.”

₂₇It was the fourteenth night, and we were being driven about in the Mediterranean by the storm. About midnight the sailors suspected that we were getting close to land. ₂₈So they dropped a line with a weight tied to it and found that the water was forty metres deep; a little later they did the same and found that it was thirty metres deep. ₂₉They were afraid that the ship would go on the rocks, so they lowered four anchors from the back of the ship and prayed for daylight. ₃₀Then the sailors tried to escape from the ship; they lowered the boat into the water and pretended that they were going to put out some anchors from the front of the ship. ₃₁But Paul said to the army officer and soldiers, “If the sailors don't stay on board, you have no hope of being saved.” ₃₂So the soldiers cut the ropes that held the boat and let it go.

₃₃Just before dawn, Paul begged them all to eat some food: “You have been waiting for fourteen days now, and all this time you have not eaten anything. ₃₄I beg you, then, eat some food; you need it in order to survive. Not even a hair of your heads will be lost.” ₃₅After saying this, Paul took some bread, gave thanks to God before them all, broke it, and began to eat. ₃₆They took heart, and every one of them also ate some food. ₃₇There was a total of 276 of us on board. ₃₈After everyone had eaten enough, they lightened the ship by throwing all the wheat into the sea.

₃₉When day came, the sailors did not recognize the coast, but they noticed a bay with a beach and decided that, if possible, they would run the ship aground there. ₄₀So they cut off the anchors and let them sink in the sea, and at the same time they untied the ropes that held the steering oars. Then they raised the sail at the front of the ship so that the wind would blow the ship forward, and we headed for shore. ₄₁But the ship hit a sandbank and went aground; the front part of the ship got stuck and could not move, while the back part was being broken to pieces by the violence of the waves.

₄₂The soldiers made a plan to kill all the prisoners, in order to keep them from swimming ashore and escaping. ₄₃But the army officer wanted to save Paul, so he stopped them from doing this. Instead, he ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first and swim ashore; ₄₄the rest were to follow, holding on to the planks or to some broken pieces of the ship. And this was how we all got safely ashore.

₁When we were safely ashore, we learnt that the island was called Malta. ₂The natives there were very friendly to us. It had started to rain and was cold, so they lit a fire and made us all welcome. ₃Paul gathered up a bundle of sticks and was putting them on the fire when a snake came out on account of the heat and fastened itself to his hand. ₄The natives saw the snake hanging on Paul's hand and said to one another, “This man must be a murderer, but Fate will not let him live, even though he escaped from the sea.” ₅But Paul shook the snake off into the fire without being harmed at all. ₆They were waiting for him to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But after waiting for a long time and not seeing anything unusual happening to him, they changed their minds and said, “He is a god!”

₇Not far from that place were some fields that belonged to Publius, the chief official of the island. He welcomed us kindly and for three days we were his guests. ₈Publius' father was in bed, sick with fever and dysentery. Paul went into his room, prayed, placed his hands on him, and healed him. ₉When this happened, all the other sick people on the island came and were healed. ₁₀They gave us many gifts, and when we sailed, they put on board what we needed for the voyage.

₁₁After three months we sailed away on a ship from Alexandria, called “The Twin Gods”, which had spent the winter in the island. ₁₂We arrived in the city of Syracuse and stayed there for three days. ₁₃From there we sailed on and arrived in the city of Rhegium. The next day a wind began to blow from the south, and in two days we came to the town of Puteoli. ₁₄We found some believers there who asked us to stay with them a week. And so we came to Rome. ₁₅The believers in Rome heard about us and came as far as the towns of Market of Appius and Three Inns to meet us. When Paul saw them, he thanked God and was greatly encouraged.

₁₆When we arrived in Rome, Paul was allowed to live by himself with a soldier guarding him.

₁₇After three days Paul called the local Jewish leaders to a meeting. When they had gathered, he said to them, “My fellow-Israelites, even though I did nothing against our people or the customs that we received from our ancestors, I was made a prisoner in Jerusalem and handed over to the Romans. ₁₈After questioning me, the Romans wanted to release me, because they found that I had done nothing for which I deserved to die. ₁₉But when the Jews opposed this, I was forced to appeal to the Emperor, even though I had no accusation to make against my own people. ₂₀That is why I asked to see you and talk with you. As a matter of fact, I am bound in chains like this for the sake of him for whom the people of Israel hope.”

₂₁They said to him, “We have not received any letters from Judea about you, nor have any of our people come from there with any news or anything bad to say about you. ₂₂But we would like to hear your ideas, because we know that everywhere people speak against this party to which you belong.”

₂₃So they fixed a date with Paul, and a large number of them came that day to the place where Paul was staying. From morning till night he explained to them his message about the Kingdom of God, and he tried to convince them about Jesus by quoting from the Law of Moses and the writings of the prophets. ₂₄Some of them were convinced by his words, but others would not believe. ₂₅So they left, disagreeing among themselves, after Paul had said this one thing: “How well the Holy Spirit spoke through the prophet Isaiah to your ancestors! ₂₆For he said,

₂₈And Paul concluded: “You are to know, then, that God's message of salvation has been sent to the Gentiles. They will listen!”

₃₀For two years Paul lived in a place he rented for himself, and there he welcomed all who came to see him. ₃₁He preached about the Kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ, speaking with all boldness and freedom.