Book of Common Prayer

³⁰ On the next day, still wanting to get to the bottom of it all, and to find out what was being alleged by the Jews, he released Paul, and ordered the chief priests to come together, with the whole Sanhedrin. He brought Paul in and presented him to them.

Paul before the Sanhedrin

23 Paul looked hard at the Sanhedrin.

“My brothers,” he said. “I have conducted myself before God in a completely good conscience all my life up to this day.”

² Ananias, the high priest, ordered the bystanders to strike Paul on the mouth.

³ “God will strike you, you whitewashed wall!” said Paul to Ananias. “You are sitting to judge me according to the law, and yet you order me to be struck in violation of the law?”

⁴ “You are insulting the high priest?” asked the bystanders.

⁵ “My brothers,” replied Paul, “I didn’t know he was the high priest. Scripture says, of course, ‘You mustn’t speak evil of the ruler of your people.’ ”

⁶ Paul knew that some of the gathering were Sadducees, and the rest were Pharisees.

“My brothers,” he shouted to the Sanhedrin, “I am a Pharisee, the son of Pharisees. This trial is about the Hope, about the Resurrection of the Dead!”

⁷ At these words, an argument broke out between the Pharisees and Sadducees, and they were split among themselves. ⁸ (The Sadducees deny that there is any resurrection, or any intermediate state of “angel” or “spirit,” but the Pharisees affirm them both.) ⁹ There was quite an uproar, with some of the scribes from the Pharisees’ party standing up and arguing angrily, “We find nothing wrong in this man! What if a spirit spoke to him, or an angel for that matter?”

¹⁰ Faced with another great riot, the tribune was worried that Paul was going to be pulled in pieces between them. He ordered the guard to go down and snatch him out of the midst of them and bring him back up into the barracks.

¹¹ On the next night, the Lord stood by him.

“Cheer up!” he said. “You have given your testimony about me in Jerusalem. Now you have to do it in Rome.”

Judging others and true obedience

³⁹ Jesus told them this riddle. “What do you get when one blind man guides another? Both of them falling in a ditch! ⁴⁰ Students can’t do better than the teacher; when the course is done, they’ll all be just like the teacher.

⁴¹ “Why look at the speck of dust in your brother’s eye, when you haven’t noticed the plank in your own eye? ⁴² How can you say to your brother, ‘Dear brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you can’t see the plank in your own? You’re a fraud! First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you’ll see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

⁴³ “You see, no good tree bears bad fruit; nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. ⁴⁴ Every tree is known by its fruit. You don’t pick figs from thorns; nor do you get grapes from a briar-bush. ⁴⁵ The good person brings good things out of the good treasure of the heart; the evil person brings evil things out of evil. What comes out of the mouth is what’s overflowing in the heart.

⁴⁶ “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and don’t do what I say? ⁴⁷ I’ll show you what people are like when they come to me, and hear my words, and do them. ⁴⁸ They are like a wise man building a house: he dug, he went down deep, and he laid a foundation on rock. When a flood came, the river burst its banks all over the house, but it couldn’t shake it because it was well built. ⁴⁹ But when people hear but don’t obey—that’s like a man who built a house on the ground, without a foundation. When the river burst over it, it fell down at once. The ruin of that house was devastating.”