¹⁶ When we arrived in Rome, the Roman officer said to Paul, ‘You may live in a house by yourself, but a soldier will guard you there.’

¹⁷ After three days, Paul asked the leaders of the Jews in Rome to meet with him. When they met together, Paul said to them, ‘Friends, I am a Jew as you are. I tell you that I have never done anything bad against our people. I have always obeyed the rules that our ancestors gave to us. But the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem took hold of me. They gave me to the Roman rulers so that they would judge me. ¹⁸ The Roman rulers asked me questions about what I had done. They discovered that I had not done anything wrong. There was no reason that they should kill me. So they wanted to let me go free.