Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹After Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in the towns of Galilee.

²When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples

³to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”

⁴Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see:

⁵The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.

⁶Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”

⁷As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind?

⁸If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces.

⁹Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.

¹⁰This is the one about whom it is written: “ ‘I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.’

¹¹Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

¹²From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it.

¹³For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John.

¹⁴And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come.

¹⁵Whoever has ears, let them hear.

¹⁶“To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:

¹⁷“ ‘We played the pipe for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’

¹⁸For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’

¹⁹The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.”

²⁰Then Jesus began to denounce the towns in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent.

²¹“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

²²But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you.

²³And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the heavens? No, you will go down to Hades. For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day.

²⁴But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”

²⁵At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.

²⁶Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.

²⁷“All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

²⁸“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

²⁹Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

³⁰For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

¹Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, contrary to his command.

²So fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD.

³Moses then said to Aaron, “This is what the LORD spoke of when he said: “ ‘Among those who approach me I will be proved holy; in the sight of all the people I will be honored.’ ” Aaron remained silent.

⁴Moses summoned Mishael and Elzaphan, sons of Aaron’s uncle Uzziel, and said to them, “Come here; carry your cousins outside the camp, away from the front of the sanctuary.”

⁵So they came and carried them, still in their tunics, outside the camp, as Moses ordered.

⁶Then Moses said to Aaron and his sons Eleazar and Ithamar, “Do not let your hair become unkempt and do not tear your clothes, or you will die and the LORD will be angry with the whole community. But your relatives, all the Israelites, may mourn for those the LORD has destroyed by fire.

⁷Do not leave the entrance to the tent of meeting or you will die, because the LORD’s anointing oil is on you.” So they did as Moses said.

⁸Then the LORD said to Aaron,

⁹“You and your sons are not to drink wine or other fermented drink whenever you go into the tent of meeting, or you will die. This is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come,

¹⁰so that you can distinguish between the holy and the common, between the unclean and the clean,

¹¹and so you can teach the Israelites all the decrees the LORD has given them through Moses.”

¹²Moses said to Aaron and his remaining sons, Eleazar and Ithamar, “Take the grain offering left over from the food offerings prepared without yeast and presented to the LORD and eat it beside the altar, for it is most holy.

¹³Eat it in the sanctuary area, because it is your share and your sons’ share of the food offerings presented to the LORD; for so I have been commanded.

¹⁴But you and your sons and your daughters may eat the breast that was waved and the thigh that was presented. Eat them in a ceremonially clean place; they have been given to you and your children as your share of the Israelites’ fellowship offerings.

¹⁵The thigh that was presented and the breast that was waved must be brought with the fat portions of the food offerings, to be waved before the LORD as a wave offering. This will be the perpetual share for you and your children, as the LORD has commanded.”

¹⁶When Moses inquired about the goat of the sin offering and found that it had been burned up, he was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron’s remaining sons, and asked,

¹⁷“Why didn’t you eat the sin offering in the sanctuary area? It is most holy; it was given to you to take away the guilt of the community by making atonement for them before the LORD.

¹⁸Since its blood was not taken into the Holy Place, you should have eaten the goat in the sanctuary area, as I commanded.”

¹⁹Aaron replied to Moses, “Today they sacrificed their sin offering and their burnt offering before the LORD, but such things as this have happened to me. Would the LORD have been pleased if I had eaten the sin offering today?”

²⁰When Moses heard this, he was satisfied.

¹If any of you has a dispute with another, do you dare to take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the Lord’s people?

²Or do you not know that the Lord’s people will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases?

³Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life!

⁴Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, do you ask for a ruling from those whose way of life is scorned in the church?

⁵I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers?

⁶But instead, one brother takes another to court—and this in front of unbelievers!

⁷The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?

⁸Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers and sisters.

⁹Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men

¹⁰nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

¹¹And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

¹²“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything.

¹³You say, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.” The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

¹⁴By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also.

¹⁵Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never!

¹⁶Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”

¹⁷But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

¹⁸Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.

¹⁹Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

²⁰you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.

¹Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking.

²I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles.

³Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.

⁴They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.”

⁵But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water.

⁶By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.

⁷By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

⁸But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

⁹The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

¹⁰But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.

¹¹Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives

¹²as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat.

¹³But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.

¹⁴So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.

¹⁵Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him.

¹⁶He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.

¹⁷Therefore, dear friends, since you have been forewarned, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure position.

¹⁸But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.

¹Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:

²“Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge?

³Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.

⁴“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand.

⁵Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?

⁶On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone—

⁷while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?

⁸“Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb,

⁹when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness,

¹⁰when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place,

¹¹when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’?

¹²“Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place,

¹³that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it?

¹⁴The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features stand out like those of a garment.

¹⁵The wicked are denied their light, and their upraised arm is broken.

¹⁶“Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?

¹⁷Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness?

¹⁸Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this.

¹⁹“What is the way to the abode of light? And where does darkness reside?

²⁰Can you take them to their places? Do you know the paths to their dwellings?

²¹Surely you know, for you were already born! You have lived so many years!

²²“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail,

²³which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle?

²⁴What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth?

²⁵Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm,

²⁶to water a land where no one lives, an uninhabited desert,

²⁷to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass?

²⁸Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew?

²⁹From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens

³⁰when the waters become hard as stone, when the surface of the deep is frozen?

³¹“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades? Can you loosen Orion’s belt?

³²Can you bring forth the constellations in their seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs?

³³Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?

³⁴“Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water?

³⁵Do you send the lightning bolts on their way? Do they report to you, ‘Here we are’?

³⁶Who gives the ibis wisdom or gives the rooster understanding?

³⁷Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens

³⁸when the dust becomes hard and the clods of earth stick together?

³⁹“Do you hunt the prey for the lioness and satisfy the hunger of the lions

⁴⁰when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in a thicket?

⁴¹Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food?

¹A psalm. For giving grateful praise. Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.

²Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.

³Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

⁴Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.

⁵For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.

¹My son, keep my words and store up my commands within you.

²Keep my commands and you will live; guard my teachings as the apple of your eye.

³Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.

⁴Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,” and to insight, “You are my relative.”

⁵They will keep you from the adulterous woman, from the wayward woman with her seductive words.

⁶At the window of my house I looked down through the lattice.

⁷I saw among the simple, I noticed among the young men, a youth who had no sense.

⁸He was going down the street near her corner, walking along in the direction of her house

⁹at twilight, as the day was fading, as the dark of night set in.

¹⁰Then out came a woman to meet him, dressed like a prostitute and with crafty intent.

¹¹(She is unruly and defiant, her feet never stay at home;

¹²now in the street, now in the squares, at every corner she lurks.)

¹³She took hold of him and kissed him and with a brazen face she said:

¹⁴“Today I fulfilled my vows, and I have food from my fellowship offering at home.

¹⁵So I came out to meet you; I looked for you and have found you!

¹⁶I have covered my bed with colored linens from Egypt.

¹⁷I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon.

¹⁸Come, let’s drink deeply of love till morning; let’s enjoy ourselves with love!

¹⁹My husband is not at home; he has gone on a long journey.

²⁰He took his purse filled with money and will not be home till full moon.”

²¹With persuasive words she led him astray; she seduced him with her smooth talk.

²²All at once he followed her like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer stepping into a noose

²³till an arrow pierces his liver, like a bird darting into a snare, little knowing it will cost him his life.

²⁴Now then, my sons, listen to me; pay attention to what I say.

²⁵Do not let your heart turn to her ways or stray into her paths.

²⁶Many are the victims she has brought down; her slain are a mighty throng.

²⁷Her house is a highway to the grave, leading down to the chambers of death.

¹Now a troublemaker named Sheba son of Bikri, a Benjamite, happened to be there. He sounded the trumpet and shouted, “We have no share in David, no part in Jesse’s son! Every man to his tent, Israel!”

²So all the men of Israel deserted David to follow Sheba son of Bikri. But the men of Judah stayed by their king all the way from the Jordan to Jerusalem.

³When David returned to his palace in Jerusalem, he took the ten concubines he had left to take care of the palace and put them in a house under guard. He provided for them but had no sexual relations with them. They were kept in confinement till the day of their death, living as widows.

⁴Then the king said to Amasa, “Summon the men of Judah to come to me within three days, and be here yourself.”

⁵But when Amasa went to summon Judah, he took longer than the time the king had set for him.

⁶David said to Abishai, “Now Sheba son of Bikri will do us more harm than Absalom did. Take your master’s men and pursue him, or he will find fortified cities and escape from us.”

⁷So Joab’s men and the Kerethites and Pelethites and all the mighty warriors went out under the command of Abishai. They marched out from Jerusalem to pursue Sheba son of Bikri.

⁸While they were at the great rock in Gibeon, Amasa came to meet them. Joab was wearing his military tunic, and strapped over it at his waist was a belt with a dagger in its sheath. As he stepped forward, it dropped out of its sheath.

⁹Joab said to Amasa, “How are you, my brother?” Then Joab took Amasa by the beard with his right hand to kiss him.

¹⁰Amasa was not on his guard against the dagger in Joab’s hand, and Joab plunged it into his belly, and his intestines spilled out on the ground. Without being stabbed again, Amasa died. Then Joab and his brother Abishai pursued Sheba son of Bikri.

¹¹One of Joab’s men stood beside Amasa and said, “Whoever favors Joab, and whoever is for David, let him follow Joab!”

¹²Amasa lay wallowing in his blood in the middle of the road, and the man saw that all the troops came to a halt there. When he realized that everyone who came up to Amasa stopped, he dragged him from the road into a field and threw a garment over him.

¹³After Amasa had been removed from the road, everyone went on with Joab to pursue Sheba son of Bikri.

¹⁴Sheba passed through all the tribes of Israel to Abel Beth Maakah and through the entire region of the Bikrites, who gathered together and followed him.

¹⁵All the troops with Joab came and besieged Sheba in Abel Beth Maakah. They built a siege ramp up to the city, and it stood against the outer fortifications. While they were battering the wall to bring it down,

¹⁶a wise woman called from the city, “Listen! Listen! Tell Joab to come here so I can speak to him.”

¹⁷He went toward her, and she asked, “Are you Joab?” “I am,” he answered. She said, “Listen to what your servant has to say.” “I’m listening,” he said.

¹⁸She continued, “Long ago they used to say, ‘Get your answer at Abel,’ and that settled it.

¹⁹We are the peaceful and faithful in Israel. You are trying to destroy a city that is a mother in Israel. Why do you want to swallow up the LORD’s inheritance?”

²⁰“Far be it from me!” Joab replied, “Far be it from me to swallow up or destroy!

²¹That is not the case. A man named Sheba son of Bikri, from the hill country of Ephraim, has lifted up his hand against the king, against David. Hand over this one man, and I’ll withdraw from the city.” The woman said to Joab, “His head will be thrown to you from the wall.”

²²Then the woman went to all the people with her wise advice, and they cut off the head of Sheba son of Bikri and threw it to Joab. So he sounded the trumpet, and his men dispersed from the city, each returning to his home. And Joab went back to the king in Jerusalem.

²³Joab was over Israel’s entire army; Benaiah son of Jehoiada was over the Kerethites and Pelethites;

²⁴Adoniram was in charge of forced labor; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was recorder;

²⁵Sheva was secretary; Zadok and Abiathar were priests;

²⁶and Ira the Jairite was David’s priest.

¹While Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army and all the kingdoms and peoples in the empire he ruled were fighting against Jerusalem and all its surrounding towns, this word came to Jeremiah from the LORD:

²“This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Go to Zedekiah king of Judah and tell him, ‘This is what the LORD says: I am about to give this city into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it down.

³You will not escape from his grasp but will surely be captured and given into his hands. You will see the king of Babylon with your own eyes, and he will speak with you face to face. And you will go to Babylon.

⁴“ ‘Yet hear the LORD’s promise to you, Zedekiah king of Judah. This is what the LORD says concerning you: You will not die by the sword;

⁵you will die peacefully. As people made a funeral fire in honor of your predecessors, the kings who ruled before you, so they will make a fire in your honor and lament, “Alas, master!” I myself make this promise, declares the LORD.’ ”

⁶Then Jeremiah the prophet told all this to Zedekiah king of Judah, in Jerusalem,

⁷while the army of the king of Babylon was fighting against Jerusalem and the other cities of Judah that were still holding out—Lachish and Azekah. These were the only fortified cities left in Judah.

⁸The word came to Jeremiah from the LORD after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to proclaim freedom for the slaves.

⁹Everyone was to free their Hebrew slaves, both male and female; no one was to hold a fellow Hebrew in bondage.

¹⁰So all the officials and people who entered into this covenant agreed that they would free their male and female slaves and no longer hold them in bondage. They agreed, and set them free.

¹¹But afterward they changed their minds and took back the slaves they had freed and enslaved them again.

¹²Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah:

¹³“This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I made a covenant with your ancestors when I brought them out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. I said,

¹⁴‘Every seventh year each of you must free any fellow Hebrews who have sold themselves to you. After they have served you six years, you must let them go free.’ Your ancestors, however, did not listen to me or pay attention to me.

¹⁵Recently you repented and did what is right in my sight: Each of you proclaimed freedom to your own people. You even made a covenant before me in the house that bears my Name.

¹⁶But now you have turned around and profaned my name; each of you has taken back the male and female slaves you had set free to go where they wished. You have forced them to become your slaves again.

¹⁷“Therefore this is what the LORD says: You have not obeyed me; you have not proclaimed freedom to your own people. So I now proclaim ‘freedom’ for you, declares the LORD—‘freedom’ to fall by the sword, plague and famine. I will make you abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth.

¹⁸Those who have violated my covenant and have not fulfilled the terms of the covenant they made before me, I will treat like the calf they cut in two and then walked between its pieces.

¹⁹The leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the court officials, the priests and all the people of the land who walked between the pieces of the calf,

²⁰I will deliver into the hands of their enemies who want to kill them. Their dead bodies will become food for the birds and the wild animals.

²¹“I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah and his officials into the hands of their enemies who want to kill them, to the army of the king of Babylon, which has withdrawn from you.

²²I am going to give the order, declares the LORD, and I will bring them back to this city. They will fight against it, take it and burn it down. And I will lay waste the towns of Judah so no one can live there.”

¹Paul came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was Jewish and a believer but whose father was a Greek.

²The believers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him.

³Paul wanted to take him along on the journey, so he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.

⁴As they traveled from town to town, they delivered the decisions reached by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey.

⁵So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers.

⁶Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia.

⁷When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to.

⁸So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas.

⁹During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.”

¹⁰After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

¹¹From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day we went on to Neapolis.

¹²From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days.

¹³On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there.

¹⁴One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.

¹⁵When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.

¹⁶Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling.

¹⁷She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.”

¹⁸She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.

¹⁹When her owners realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities.

²⁰They brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar

²¹by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.”

²²The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods.

²³After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully.

²⁴When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

²⁵About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.

²⁶Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose.

²⁷The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped.

²⁸But Paul shouted, “Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!”

²⁹The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas.

³⁰He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

³¹They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.”

³²Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house.

³³At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his household were baptized.

³⁴The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole household.

³⁵When it was daylight, the magistrates sent their officers to the jailer with the order: “Release those men.”

³⁶The jailer told Paul, “The magistrates have ordered that you and Silas be released. Now you can leave. Go in peace.”

³⁷But Paul said to the officers: “They beat us publicly without a trial, even though we are Roman citizens, and threw us into prison. And now do they want to get rid of us quietly? No! Let them come themselves and escort us out.”

³⁸The officers reported this to the magistrates, and when they heard that Paul and Silas were Roman citizens, they were alarmed.

³⁹They came to appease them and escorted them from the prison, requesting them to leave the city.

⁴⁰After Paul and Silas came out of the prison, they went to Lydia’s house, where they met with the brothers and sisters and encouraged them. Then they left.