Acts 25:1-12

New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised

Paul Appeals to the Emperor

25 Three days after Festus had arrived in the province, he went up from Caesarea to Jerusalem ² where the chief priests and the leaders of the Jews gave him a report against Paul. They appealed to him ³ and requested, as a favour to them against Paul,^[a] to have him transferred to Jerusalem. They were, in fact, planning an ambush to kill him along the way. ⁴ Festus replied that Paul was being kept at Caesarea, and that he himself intended to go there shortly. ⁵ ‘So’, he said, ‘let those of you who have the authority come down with me, and if there is anything wrong about the man, let them accuse him.’

⁶ After he had stayed among them for not more than eight or ten days, he went down to Caesarea; the next day he took his seat on the tribunal and ordered Paul to be brought. ⁷ When he arrived, the Jews who had gone down from Jerusalem surrounded him, bringing many serious charges against him, which they could not prove. ⁸ Paul said in his defence, ‘I have in no way committed an offence against the law of the Jews, or against the temple, or against the emperor.’ ⁹ But Festus, wishing to do the Jews a favour, asked Paul, ‘Do you wish to go up to Jerusalem and be tried there before me on these charges?’ ¹⁰ Paul said, ‘I am appealing to the emperor’s tribunal; this is where I should be tried. I have done no wrong to the Jews, as you very well know. ¹¹ Now if I am in the wrong and have committed something for which I deserve to die, I am not trying to escape death; but if there is nothing to their charges against me, no one can turn me over to them. I appeal to the emperor.’ ¹² Then Festus, after he had conferred with his council, replied, ‘You have appealed to the emperor; to the emperor you will go.’