Acts 19:21-41

International Children’s Bible

Paul Plans a Trip

²¹ After these things, Paul made plans to go to Jerusalem. He planned to go through the countries of Macedonia and Southern Greece, and then on to Jerusalem. He said, “After I have been to Jerusalem, I must also visit Rome.” ²² Paul sent Timothy and Erastus, two of his helpers, ahead to Macedonia. He himself stayed in Asia for a while.

Trouble in Ephesus

²³ But during that time, there was some serious trouble in Ephesus about the Way of Jesus. ²⁴ There was a man named Demetrius, who worked with silver. He made little silver models that looked like the temple of the goddess Artemis.^[a] The men who did this work made much money. ²⁵ Demetrius had a meeting with these men and some others who did the same kind of work. He told them, “Men, you know that we make a lot of money from our business. ²⁶ But look at what this man Paul is doing! He has convinced and turned away many people in Ephesus and in almost all of Asia! He says the gods that men make are not real. ²⁷ There is a danger that our business will lose its good name. But there is also another danger: People will begin to think that the temple of the great goddess Artemis is not important! Her greatness will be destroyed. And Artemis is the goddess that everyone in Asia and the whole world worships.”

²⁸ When the men heard this, they became very angry. They shouted, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” ²⁹ The whole city became confused. The people grabbed Gaius and Aristarchus. (These two men were from Macedonia and were traveling with Paul.) Then all the people ran to the theater. ³⁰ Paul wanted to go in and talk to the crowd, but the followers did not let him. ³¹ Also, some leaders of Asia were friends of Paul. They sent him a message, begging him not to go into the theater. ³² Some people were shouting one thing, and some were shouting another. The meeting was completely confused. Most of the people did not know why they had come together. ³³ The Jews put a man named Alexander in front of the people. Some of them had told him what to do. Alexander waved his hand because he wanted to explain things to the people. ³⁴ But when they saw that Alexander was a Jew, they all began shouting the same thing. They continued shouting for two hours: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”

³⁵ Then the city clerk made the crowd be quiet. He said, “Men of Ephesus, everyone knows that Ephesus is the city that keeps the temple of the great goddess Artemis. All people know that we also keep her holy stone^[b] that fell from heaven. ³⁶ No one can say that this is not true. So you should be quiet. You must stop and think before you do anything. ³⁷ You brought these men here, but they have not said anything evil against our goddess. They have not stolen anything from her temple. ³⁸ We have courts of law, and there are judges. Do Demetrius and the men who work with him have a charge against anyone? They should go to the courts! That is where they can argue with each other! ³⁹ Is there something else you want to talk about? It can be decided at the regular town meeting of the people. ⁴⁰ I say this because some people might see this trouble today and say that we are rioting. We could not explain this because there is no real reason for this meeting.” ⁴¹ After the city clerk said these things, he told the people to go home.