Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

⁶ They reached the place of Nacon's threshing floor. There the oxen that were pulling the cart almost fell. So Uzzah reached out to hold God's Covenant Box to stop it falling. ⁷ The Lord was very angry with Uzzah because he did not respect God's rules.^[a] He immediately knocked Uzzah down to the ground. Uzzah died there, beside the Covenant Box.

⁸ David was angry because the Lord had punished Uzzah. So he called that place ‘Perez Uzzah’. That is still its name today.^[b]

⁹ So David now became afraid of the Lord. He said, ‘The Lord's Covenant Box is too holy to come with me!’ ¹⁰ He no longer wanted to take the Lord's Covenant Box to the City of David to be with him there. Instead, he took it to the house of Obed-Edom, who came from Gath. ¹¹ The Lord's Covenant Box stayed in Obed-Edom's house for three months. During that time, the Lord blessed Obed-Edom and all the people in his house.

¹² People told King David, ‘The Lord has blessed Obed-Edom's family and everything that belongs to him, because of the Covenant Box.’

So David went back to Obed-Edom's house. He was now happy to bring the Covenant Box from there to the City of David.

²⁷ At the end of those seven days, some Jews from Asia region saw Paul in the temple. They said some bad things against Paul to the crowd. So the people became angry and they took hold of Paul. ²⁸ The Jews from Asia shouted, ‘People of Israel, come and help us! This is the man who goes everywhere and he teaches everyone bad things. He speaks against us, the people of Israel. He also speaks against the Law of Moses and against this temple. Now he has even brought some Gentiles into this temple. So now this special place is not clean in front of God any longer.’

²⁹ (These men had earlier seen Paul in the city with a man called Trophimus. Trophimus was a Gentile who came from Ephesus. They thought that Paul had brought Trophimus into the temple. That is why they shouted bad things against Paul.)^[a]

³⁰ Many other people in the city heard about the trouble and they also became angry. They all ran from their homes to the temple and they took hold of Paul. Then they pulled him out of the temple and they closed the doors immediately.^[b]

³¹ The angry crowd was trying to kill Paul. But someone sent a message to the leader of the Roman soldiers. The message was, ‘People are fighting everywhere in the city.’

³² So the soldiers' leader quickly took some other officers and a large group of soldiers and they ran down to the crowd. The angry crowd of people saw the leader with his soldiers. So then they stopped hitting Paul.

³³ The Roman soldiers' leader went to Paul and he took hold of him. He said to his men, ‘Tie two chains round the arms of this man.’ Then he asked the people in the crowd, ‘Who is this man and what has he done?’

³⁴ Some people in the crowd shouted one thing and other people shouted something different. There was so much noise that the leader of the soldiers was not sure about the true facts. He did not know what had really happened. So he said to his soldiers, ‘Take this man up into our strong building!’ ³⁵ The soldiers then led Paul as far as the steps of their building. Then they had to carry him because the crowd was so angry. ³⁶ The crowd followed behind Paul and the soldiers. They were shouting, ‘Kill him!’

³⁷ While the soldiers were leading Paul into their building, he asked their leader, ‘Please may I say something to you?’

The soldiers' leader replied, ‘Oh! Do you speak the Greek language? ³⁸ I thought that you must be that bad man who came from Egypt. He was the one who fought against our Roman government. Some time ago, he led 4,000 of his own men out into the wilderness, with their weapons.’

³⁹ Paul answered, ‘I am a Jew and I was born in Tarsus in the region called Cilicia. So you see, I am a man from an important city. Please, let me speak to this crowd.’