⁴ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Reach out your hand and seize it by the tail”—so he reached out his hand and grasped it, and it became a staff in his hand—

³ Paul had gathered a bundle of brushwood and was putting it on the fire when a viper, driven out by the heat, fastened itself on his hand. ⁴ When the local people saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, “This man must be a murderer; though he has escaped from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live.”^{(A) 5} He, however, shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm.^{(B) 6} They were expecting him to swell up or drop dead, but after they had waited a long time and saw that nothing unusual had happened to him, they changed their minds and began to say that he was a god.^(C)

⁵ His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

¹⁹ Indeed, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will hurt you.^(A)

¹⁸ they will pick up snakes,^[a] and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

The Command to Sacrifice Isaac

22 After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” ² He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.”^(A)