Paul’s Return to Antioch

¹⁸ After staying there for a considerable time, Paul said farewell to the brothers and sisters and sailed for Syria, accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila. At Cenchreae he had his hair cut, for he was under a vow.^(A)

²⁴ Join these men, go through the rite of purification with them, and pay for the shaving of their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you but that you yourself observe and guard the law.^(A)

¹⁸ Then the nazirites shall shave the consecrated head at the entrance of the tent of meeting and shall take the hair from the consecrated head and put it on the fire under the sacrifice of well-being.^(A)

²⁰ To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to gain Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might gain those under the law.

Personal Greetings

16 I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon^[a] of the church at Cenchreae,^(A)

² There he found a Jew named Aquila from Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul^[a] went to see them,^(A)

⁵ “All the days of their nazirite vow no razor shall come upon the head; until the time is completed for which they separate themselves to the Lord, they shall be holy; they shall let the locks of the head grow long.^(A)

⁶ “All the days that they separate themselves to the Lord they shall not go near a corpse.^{(B) 7} Even if their father or mother, brother or sister, should die, they may not defile themselves, because their consecration to God is upon the head. ⁸ All their days as nazirites they are holy to the Lord.

⁹ “If someone suddenly dies nearby, defiling the head of the nazirite, then they shall shave the head on the day of their cleansing; on the seventh day they shall shave it.

²¹ Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia,^(A)

²³ with the following letter: “The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers and sisters of gentile origin in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings.

² “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: When either men or women make a special vow, the vow of a nazirite, to separate themselves to the Lord,^(A)