Historical

17 Paul and Silas went through the cities of Amphipolis and Apollonia. Then they reached the town of Thessalonica. Here the Jews had a meeting place.

² As he had done in other places, Paul went into it. On three Sabbath days he explained what was written in the holy writings.

³ He proved these things from the writings. He said. `It was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise again from death. And this Jesus, whom I am talking about, is the Christ.'

⁴ Some of the people believed him and they followed Paul and Silas. Some of them were Greek people who worshipped God. And some were leading women.

⁵ But some Jews did not believe, and they were jealous. So they called some of the bad men together and made a crowd. They started to fight and to make plenty of trouble and noise in the city. At Jason's house they went in by force to find Paul and Silas. They wanted to bring them outside to the people.

⁶ But they did not find them. So they took Jason and some of the Christian brothers to the rulers of the city. They shouted, `These men have turned the world upside down. Now they have come here also.

⁷ Jason has taken them into his house. None of them obeys the laws of Caesar. They say there is another king named Jesus.'

⁸ All the people and the rulers of the city became angry when they heard this.

⁹ They made Jason and the other Christians pay much money. Then they let them go.

¹⁰ That night the Christian brothers sent Paul and Silas to the town of Berea. When they reached there, they went into the Jews' meeting place.

¹¹ The people in Berea were better than the people of Thessalonica. They were glad to listen to Paul's words. Every day they studied the holy writings to see if what Paul said was right.

¹² Through this, many of them believed. Some of the leading women of the Greek people and some of the men also believed.

¹³ The leaders of the Jews in Thessalonica heard that Paul told the word of God to the people at Berea. They came to Berea and talked to the people. They said things that made the people very angry against Paul.

¹⁴ The Christian brothers sent Paul to the seaside right away. But Silas and Timothy stayed on at Berea.

¹⁵ The men took Paul to the city of Athens. Paul told them to tell Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as they could.

¹⁶ Paul was waiting for Silas and Timothy at Athens. He saw that the city was full of idols. His spirit was troubled about this.

¹⁷ In the meeting place he talked with the Jews and those who believed in the true God. In the market every day, he talked to people he met there.

¹⁸ There were some wise men who believed the teachings of Epicurius. They believed the teaching of other wise men called Stoics. Some of them began to talk with Paul. And some said, `What does this talker have to say?' Others said, `He seems to be talking about new gods.' This was because he was telling them about Jesus and how he was raised from death.

¹⁹ So they took Paul and brought him to a meeting at the hill called Areopagus. They said, `We want to know what this new teaching is that you are talking about.

²⁰ You are telling us things we never heard before. We want to understand them.'

²¹ All the people of Athens and the strangers who lived there passed their time in one way. They liked to tell and to hear some new thing.

²² Then Paul stood up in the court and said, `You men of Athens, I see that you are very religious and worship many gods.

²³ As I walked about, I looked at the things you worship. I saw one place where you make sacrifices. You have written on it, "To the God we do not know." You are worshipping that God, but you do not know him. I will tell you about him.

²⁴ He made the world and everything in it. He is the Lord of the sky and the earth. He does not live in houses that people make with their hands.

²⁵ Men cannot worship him by things they make with their hands because he does not need anything. He is the one who gives life and breath and everything else to all people.

²⁶ God made one man. From that one man he has made all the nations of men to live on the whole earth. He has given to each nation a certain time and a certain place to live.

²⁷ He did this so they would look for him. He wanted them to reach out and find him. But he is not far from each one of us.

²⁸ In him we live, and move, and are alive. Some of your own writers have said, "We have come from him".

²⁹ `Therefore we have all come from God. So we should not think that God is something made of gold, or silver, or stone. He is not made by men's hands.

³⁰ In times past God did not look at what people did. They did not know any better then. But now he is calling all people to stop doing those things.

³¹ God has set a day when he will judge the whole world in the right way. He has chosen a man to do this. He has proved to all people who the man is. He has raised him from death.'

³² When the people of Athens heard that someone had been raised from death, some of them laughed. Others said, `We want to hear you talk about this matter again some time.'

³³ So then Paul left them.

³⁴ But some men followed him and believed. Among those who believed was Dionysius. He was a judge in the Areopagus court. And a woman named Damaris believed. There were others also.

18 After this Paul left Athens and went to the city of Corinth.

² There he met a Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus. A short time before this he and his wife Priscilla had come from the country of Italy. They left Italy because Claudius the ruler had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. This was the big city in Italy. Paul went to the house of Aquila and Priscilla.

³ Paul's work had been the making of tents, and that is what they did. So he stayed with them. They worked together.

⁴ Every Sabbath day he talked with the people in the meeting place for the Jews. He tried to talk so that the Jews and the Greeks would believe.

⁵ When Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia, Paul felt in his heart that he must prove to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ.

⁶ But the people talked back to Paul. And they said wrong things about him. Paul shook his clothes and said to them, `If you are lost, it is your own fault, not mine! From now on I will go to those who are not Jews.'

⁷ So he left. He went to the house of a man named Justus who worshipped God. His house was next to the meeting place.

⁸ Crispus was the head ruler of the meeting house. He and his whole family believed in the Lord. Many of the people in Corinth heard and believed. And they were baptised.

⁹ The Lord said to Paul in a vision in the night, `Do not fear. Keep on speaking. Do not stop.

¹⁰ I am with you. nobody will hurt you. I have many people in this city.'

¹¹ So Paul stayed there for one year and six months. He taught the people God's word.

¹² When Gallio was the ruler of the province of Achaia, the Jews got together to stop Paul. They took him to court.

¹³ They said, `This man is talking to the people. He is trying to make them worship God in a way that is against our law.'

¹⁴ Paul wanted to speak. Then Gallio said to the Jews, `You Jews, if it were a matter of wrong or of doing something very bad, I would listen to you.

¹⁵ But this is a matter about words and names and about your own law. So you must go and take care of it yourselves! I will not judge such things.'

¹⁶ And he drove them out of the court.

¹⁷ They caught a man. His name was Sosthenes. He was the head ruler of the meeting house. They beat him in front of the judge, but Gallio did nothing about it.

¹⁸ Paul stayed there for many days. Then he said goodbye to the Christian brothers and went in a boat to the country of Syria. Priscilla and Aquila went with him. In the town of Cenchrea he cut his hair off. This was because he had made a promise to God.

¹⁹ When they reached the city of Ephesus, Paul left the others there. He himself went to the meeting place and talked with the Jews.

²⁰ The Jews begged him to stay longer but he would not stay.

²¹ `Goodbye,' he said. `I will come back to you again if it is God's will.' Then he got in a boat and left Ephesus.

²² When he reached Caesarea, he went to greet the church people. Then he went on to Antioch.

²³ He stayed there for a while. Then he left and went through all the countries of Galatia and Phrygia. He helped the disciples to believe more strongly.

²⁴ A Jew came to Ephesus. His name was Apollos. He was born in Alexandria. He spoke with power and was able to explain the holy writings well.

²⁵ This man had been taught the way of the Lord. He was strong in spirit as he talked to people. What he taught them about the Lord was true. But he knew only about the baptism of John.

²⁶ He began to speak without fear in the meeting place. When Aquila and Priscilla heard him, they took him to their house. They explained the way of God so that he knew more about it.

²⁷ Apollos decided to go into Achaia. The Christian brothers wrote to the disciples there and asked them to receive him. When he reached Achaia, he helped very much those who believed. They believed because God was kind to them.

²⁸ He talked strongly with the Jews before the people. He proved to them from the holy writings that Jesus is the Christ.

19 While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul went over land and came to the city of Ephesus. There he met some disciples.

² Paul asked them, `Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?' They said, `No. We have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.'

³ Paul asked them, `How were you baptised?' They said, `We were baptised in John's way.'

⁴ Then Paul said, `John baptised people when they stopped their wrong ways. He told people that they should believe on the one who would follow him. That one is Jesus.'

⁵ When they heard this, they were baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus.

⁶ Paul put his hands on them. Then the Holy Spirit came on them and they spoke in tongues of other lang-uages and spoke words from God.

⁷ In all, there were about twelve men.

⁸ Paul went into the meeting place. For three months he talked without fear to the people there. He tried to talk so that people would obey God.

⁹ Some of them were fixed in their minds and would not believe. They said, `The Christian way is not good' They said this in front of all the people. So Paul left them and took the disciples away. He talked and answered the questions of the people every day in the school of a man named Tyrannus.

¹⁰ This went on for two years, and all the people who lived in the province of Asia, both the Jews and the Greeks, heard the Lord's word.

^11-12 od did big works through Paul. Even some pieces of cloth he had touched were carried to sick people and they were healed. Also, people who had bad spirits in them were made free.

¹³ Some Jews were there who travelled about from place to place. They had power over bad spirits like witch-doctors. They tried to make people free from bad spirits by using the name of the Lord Jesus. They said to the spirits, `I tell you, in the name of Jesus, the one Paul talks about, come out!'

¹⁴ There was a Jew named Sceva. He was a chief priest. He had seven sons who did this.

¹⁵ But the bad spirit answered, `I know Jesus and I know Paul. But who are you?'

¹⁶ And the man who had the bad spirit in him jumped on them. He beat them all because he was stronger than they were. Their bodies were bleeding and their clothes were torn. They ran out of the house.

¹⁷ When all the Jews and the Greeks at Ephesus knew about this, they all feared. And they had great respect for the name of the Lord Jesus.

¹⁸ Many of the people who believed, told God all the bad things they used to do.

¹⁹ Many had been witch-doctors. They brought their books and burned them in front of all the people. All the books together had cost about 50,000 silver coins.

²⁰ God's word spread with power. It reached more and more people.

²¹ After this, Paul decided he would go through Macedonia and Achaia and then to Jerusalem. `After I have been there,' he said, `l must go to see the city of Rome also.'

²² He sent Timothy and Erastus, two of his helpers, into Macedonia. But he himself stayed in Asia Minor for a while.

²³ About that time there was much trouble because of the Christian way.

²⁴ A man named Demetrius made things from silver. He made little silver houses like the big house of the idol-god Diana. He and other men got much money from this work.

²⁵ Demetrius called them all together. He said, `Men, you know that we get our money from this work.

²⁶ Now you see and hear how this man Paul has talked. He has turned away many people in Ephesus. Not only that, but he has turned away the hearts of many people in almost all of Asia Minor. He says that things made by men's hands are not really gods.

²⁷ This will spoil our work. Not only that, but people will not respect the house of the great idol goddess Diana any more. All the people in Asia and in the whole world worship her now. But they will despise her!'

²⁸ When they heard this, the men were very angry and shouted, `Great is Diana of Ephesus!'

²⁹ All the people in the city were excited. They caught two men from Macedonia. Their names were Gaius and Aristarchus. They had travelled with Paul. Then they all rushed to the big meeting place with them.

³⁰ Paul wanted to go in and talk to the people, but the disciples would not let him.

³¹ Some of the leaders in Asia Minor liked Paul. They sent word to him and begged him not to go into the meeting place.

³² Some of the people were shouting one thing and some another. They were all stirred up. Most of the people did not know why they had come together.

³³ The Jews pushed Alexander forward. Some of the people put him in front. He put up his hand and wanted to talk to the people.

³⁴ But when they saw that he was a Jew, they all shouted together for two hours, `Great is Diana of Ephesus!'

³⁵ At last the city chief stopped the shouting. He said, `Men of Ephesus, everyone knows that all the people of Ephesus take care of the house of the great Diana. And they take care of the stone which fell from the sky.

³⁶ No person can say it is not true. So you should be quiet and not do anything foolish.

³⁷ The men whom you have brought here have not taken anything from the house. They have not even said anything wrong about our goddess.

³⁸ Now then, if Demetrius and the men who work with him have any complaint, let them take it to law. We have a court and we have judges.

³⁹ If you want anything more than that, it must be done in a meeting which has been called by law.

⁴⁰ We may have trouble because of what has happened today. There is not one good reason for it.'

⁴¹ When he had said this, he closed the meeting.