Acts 22:17-29

New Testament for Everyone

¹⁷ “After I came back to Jerusalem, and was praying in the Temple, I fell into a trance, ¹⁸ and I saw him speaking to me. ‘Hurry up!’ he said. ‘Leave Jerusalem as quickly as possible! They won’t accept your testimony about me.’ ¹⁹ ‘But, Lord,’ I replied, ‘they themselves know that in all the synagogues I used to imprison and beat those who believe in you. ²⁰ And when they shed the blood of Stephen, your witness, I was myself standing there and giving my approval. I was looking after the cloaks of those who were killing him.’

²¹ “ ‘No,’ he said to me. ‘Go away from here! I’m sending you far away—to the Gentiles!’ ”

²² Up to this point the crowd listened to Paul. But now they began to shout.

“Away with him from the face of the earth!” they yelled. “Someone like that has no right to live!”

Roman citizenship comes in useful

²³ The crowd was shouting, tearing their clothes, and throwing dust in the air. ²⁴ The tribune gave orders for Paul to be brought into the barracks, and he told the guards to examine him by flogging, so that he could find out the reason for all the uproar against him.

²⁵ As they were tying Paul up ready for the whips, Paul spoke to the centurion who was standing beside him.

“Is it lawful,” he said, “to flog a Roman citizen without first finding him guilty?”

²⁶ When the centurion heard that, he went off to the tribune and spoke to him.

“What d’you think you’re doing?” he said. “This fellow’s a Roman citizen!”

²⁷ The tribune came and spoke to Paul.

“Tell me,” he said. “Are you a Roman citizen?”

“Yes,” replied Paul.

²⁸ “It cost me a lot of money to buy this citizenship,” said the tribune.

“Ah,” said Paul, “but it came to me by birth.”

²⁹ The people who were about to torture Paul stepped back quickly from him. As for the tribune, he was afraid, discovering that he was a Roman citizen and that he had had him tied up.