Acts 21

Williams^{(i) 1} When we had torn ourselves away from them, we struck a bee line for Cos, and the next day on to Rhodes, and from there to Patara. ² There we found a ship bound for Phoenicia, and so we went aboard and sailed away. ³ After sighting Cyprus and leaving it on our left, we sailed on for Syria, and put in at Tyre, for the ship was to unload her cargo there. ⁴ So we looked up the disciples there and stayed a week with them. Because of impressions made by the Spirit they kept on warning Paul not to set foot in Jerusalem. ⁵ But when our time was up, we left there and went on, and all of them with their wives and children accompanied us out of town. There we knelt down on the beach and prayed; ⁶ there we bade one another goodbye, and we went aboard the ship, while they went back. ⁷ On finishing the sail from Tyre we landed at Ptolemais. Here we greeted the brothers and spent a day with them. ⁸ The next day we left there and went on to Caesarea, where we went to the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the Seven, and stayed with him. ⁹ He had four unmarried daughters who were prophetesses. ¹⁰ While we were spending some days here, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. ¹¹ He came to see us and took Paul's belt and with it bound his own hands and feet, and said, "This is what the Holy Spirit says, 'The Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt like this, and then will turn him over to the heathen.'" ¹² When we heard this, we and all the people there begged him not to go up to Jerusalem. ¹³ Then Paul answered, "What do you mean by crying and breaking my heart? Why, I am ready not only to be bound at Jerusalem but to die there for the sake of the Lord Jesus." ¹⁴ So, since he would not yield to our appeal, we stopped begging him, and said, "The Lord's will be done!" ¹⁵ After this we got ready and started up to Jerusalem. ¹⁶ Some of the disciples from Caesarea went with us and took us to the house of Mnason, a man from Cyprus, one of the early disciples, to spend the night. ¹⁷ When we reached Jerusalem, the brothers there gave us a hearty welcome. ¹⁸ On the next day we went with Paul to see James, and all the elders of the church came too. ¹⁹ Paul first greeted them and then gave them a detailed account of what God had done among the heathen through his service. ²⁰ They gave the glory to God, when they heard it, and said to him, "You see, brother, how many thousand believers there are among the Jews, all of them zealous champions of the law. ²¹ They have been repeatedly told about you that you continuously teach the Jews who live among the heathen to turn their backs on Moses, and that you continue to tell them to stop circumcising their children, and to stop observing the cherished customs. ²² What is your duty, then? They will certainly hear that you have come. ²³ Now you must do just what we tell you. We have here four men who are under a vow. ²⁴ Take them along with you, purify yourself with them, and bear the expense for them of having their heads shaved. Then everybody will know that none of those things they have been told about you are so, but that you yourself are living as a constant observer of the law. ²⁵ As for the heathen who have become believers, we have sent them our resolution that they must avoid anything that is contaminated by idols, the tasting of blood, the meat of strangled animals, and sexual immorality." ²⁶ Then Paul took the men along with him and on the next day went into the temple with them, purified, and announced the time when the purification would be completed, when the sacrifice for each one of them could be offered. ²⁷ As the seven days were drawing to a close, the Jews from Asia caught a glimpse of him in the temple and began to stir up all the crowd, and seized him, ²⁸ as they kept shouting, "Men of Israel, help! help! This is the man who teaches everybody everywhere against our people and the law and this place; yea, more than that, he has actually brought Greeks into the temple and desecrated this sacred place." ²⁹ For they had previously seen Trophimus of Ephesus in the city with him, and so they supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple. ³⁰ The whole city was stirred with excitement, and all at once the people rushed together, and seized Paul and dragged him out of the temple, and its gates at once were shut. ³¹ Now while they were trying to kill him, news reached the colonel of the regiment that all Jerusalem was in a ferment. ³² So he at once got together some soldiers and captains and hurried down against them, but as soon as they saw the colonel and his soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. ³³ Then the colonel came up and seized Paul and ordered him to be bound with two chains; he then asked who he was and what he had done. ³⁴ But they kept shouting in the crowd, some one thing, some another. As he could not with certainty find out about it, because of the tumult, he ordered him to be brought into the barracks. ³⁵ When Paul got to the steps, he was actually borne by the soldiers because of the violence of the mob, ³⁶ for a tremendous crowd of people kept following them and shouting, "Away with him!" ³⁷ As he was about to be taken into the barracks, Paul said to the colonel, "May I say something to you?" The colonel asked, "Do you know Greek? ³⁸ Are you not the Egyptian who sometime ago raised a mob of four thousand cut-throats and led them out into the desert?" ³⁹ Paul answered, "I am a Jew from Tarsus, in Cilicia, a citizen of no insignificant city. Please let me speak to the people." ⁴⁰ He granted the request, and Paul, as he was standing on the steps, made a gesture to the people, and after everybody had quieted down, he spoke to them in Hebrew as follows: