Book of Common Prayer
Agrippa and Bernice
13 After some days King Agrippa came to Caesarea, with Bernice, to greet Festus. 14 They spent several days there, and during that time Festus put to the king the whole matter of Paul and the case against him.
“I have a man here,” he said, “who was left by Felix as a prisoner. 15 When I was up in Jerusalem, the chief priests and the Jewish elders came before me and asked me to pass sentence on him. 16 My response was that it is not our Roman custom to hand anyone over until the accused has had a chance to look his accusers in the face and make a defense against the charges. 17 So they came down here, and I didn’t postpone the business, but sat in court the next day and commanded the man to be brought. 18 His accusers stood there and brought charges—but not of the sort of wrongdoing I had been expecting. 19 It turned out to have to do with various wranglings concerning their own religion, and about some dead man called Jesus whom Paul asserted was alive. 20 I simply didn’t know what to do about all this dispute, and so I asked him if he would like to go up to Jerusalem and be judged there about these things. 21 But Paul then appealed for his case to be sent up to His Majesty! So I gave the order that he should be kept under guard until I can send him to Caesar.”
22 “I should like to hear this man for myself,” said Agrippa to Festus.
“Very well,” said Festus. “You shall do so tomorrow.”
23 On the next day, Agrippa and Bernice came with great ceremony, and entered the audience chamber. With them came the tribunes and the leading men of the city. Festus gave the order, and Paul was brought in.
24 “King Agrippa,” said Festus, “and all of you assembled here, you see this man. The whole multitude of the Jews appealed to me about him, both in Jerusalem and here. They shouted that it wasn’t right to let him live. 25 But I found that he had done nothing to deserve death, and since he then himself appealed to His Majesty I decided to send him. 26 I don’t have anything definite to write to our Lord and Master about him, and so I’ve brought him here to you, and particularly before you, King Agrippa, so that I may know what to write once we have had a judicial hearing. 27 There seems no sense to me in sending a prisoner without giving some indication of the charges against him.”
Jesus calms the storm
16 “Nobody lights a lamp,” continued Jesus, “and then hides it under a pot or a bed. They put it on a lampstand, so that people who come in can see the light. 17 You see, nothing is hidden which won’t become visible. Nothing is concealed that won’t come to light.
18 “So be careful how you listen. If you’ve got something, more will be given to you; if you haven’t, even what you imagine you have will be taken away from you.”
19 His mother and brothers came to him, and couldn’t get near him because of the crowd. 20 So they sent a message to him: “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.”
21 “Mother and brothers, indeed?” replied Jesus. “Here are my mother and brothers—people who hear God’s word and do it!”
22 One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and suggested that they cross to the other shore. So they set off. 23 As they were sailing, he fell asleep. A violent wind swept down on the lake, and the boat began to fill dangerously with water.
24 “Master, Master!” shouted the disciples, coming and waking him up. “Master, we’re lost!”
He got up and scolded the wind and the waves. They stopped, and there was a flat calm.
25 “Where’s your faith?” he asked them.
They were afraid and astonished. “Who is this, then,” they asked one another, “if he can give orders to wind and water, and they do what he says?”
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.