Book of Common Prayer

²⁴ While Paul was saying these things Festus shouted, `Paul, you are crazy! All your book learning is making you crazy.'

²⁵ Paul said, `No, great ruler Festus, I am not crazy. But what I say is true. It makes good sense.

²⁶ The king knows about these things. I am not afraid to talk to him about them. I am sure that not one of these things happened without his knowing about it. This did not happen in secret.

²⁷ King Agrippa do you believe the prophets? I know you believe them.'

²⁸ Then Agrippa said to Paul, `You are trying to make me a Christian right away.'

²⁹ `Right away or later,' said Paul. `I wish that all who hear me today might be what I am. That is, what I am without these chains.'

³⁰ Then king Agrippa stood up. Festus and Bernice and those who were sitting there with them stood up also.

³¹ They left the room and talked the matter over. They said, `This man is not doing anything wrong for which he ought to be in prison or die.'

³² Agrippa said to Festus, `We could let this man go free if he had not asked to go to Caesar.'

27 It was planned that we would go by boat to Italy. An officer named Julius was put in charge of Paul and some other prisoners. Julius was an army captain in the Augustan group.

² We got on a boat which was from the city of Adramyttium. This boat was going along the coast of Asia Minor. And so we went out to sea. A man named Aristarchus from the city of Thessalonica in Macedonia came with us also.

³ The next day we stopped at the city of Sidon. Julius was kind to Paul. He allowed him to go to see his friends so they could care for him.

⁴ Then we started out to sea again. We went near the island of Cyprus, because the wind was blowing against us.

⁵ We crossed the sea by the countries of Cilicia and Pamphylia. Then we reached the city of Myra in Lycia.

⁶ There the officer found a boat from the city of Alexandria going to the country of Italy. So he put us on that boat.

⁷ We went slowly for many days. And after much trouble, we reached the city of Cnidus. The wind was blowing hard against us. We could not go on. So we went around the south side of the island of Crete, past Cape Salmone.

⁸ We had trouble going along near the coast, but at last we came to a place called Fair Havens. This was near the town of Lasea.

²⁸ `Learn a lesson from the fig tree. As soon as its branches begin to grow and the leaves come, then you know it will soon be the warm time of the year.

²⁹ `It is the same when you see all these things. You will know that the time is very near, right at the door.

³⁰ I tell you the truth. The people who are living then will not die before all these things happen.

³¹ The sky and the earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

³² `But no one knows the day or the hour when the Son of Man will come. Even the angels in heaven and the Son do not know. Only the Father knows.

³³ So watch! Stay awake and talk with God. You do not know when the time will be.

³⁴ It is like a man who went to a country far away. He left his home and told each one of his servants what work he must do. Then he told the man who guards the door to watch.

³⁵ So watch! You do not know when the master of the house will come. You do not know if he will come in the evening, or at midnight, or when the cock calls, or in the morning.

³⁶ Watch, so that you will not be sleeping if he comes quickly.

³⁷ What I say to you I say to everybody, and this is "Watch".'