20:25 will see my face again. Paul’s statement was based on his own judgment of the situation rather than on divine revelation. Because of continued plots against his life by the Jews (v. 3), the divine revelation that “imprisonment and afflictions” awaited him (v. 23), and his own intention to focus his future ministry on the western Mediterranean (Rom. 15:23–29), Paul considered it likely that he was seeing the Ephesian elders for the last time. However, it appears that Paul was later able to return to Ephesus after his release from prison in Rome (1 Tim. 1:3).