Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹Very early in the morning the leading priests, the elders, and the teachers of religious law — the entire high council — met to discuss their next step. They bound Jesus, led him away, and took him to Pilate, the Roman governor.

²Pilate asked Jesus, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus replied, “You have said it.”

³Then the leading priests kept accusing him of many crimes,

⁴and Pilate asked him, “Aren’t you going to answer them? What about all these charges they are bringing against you?”

⁵But Jesus said nothing, much to Pilate’s surprise.

⁶Now it was the governor’s custom each year during the Passover celebration to release one prisoner — anyone the people requested.

⁷One of the prisoners at that time was Barabbas, a revolutionary who had committed murder in an uprising.

⁸The crowd went to Pilate and asked him to release a prisoner as usual.

⁹“Would you like me to release to you this ‘King of the Jews’?” Pilate asked.

¹⁰(For he realized by now that the leading priests had arrested Jesus out of envy.)

¹¹But at this point the leading priests stirred up the crowd to demand the release of Barabbas instead of Jesus.

¹²Pilate asked them, “Then what should I do with this man you call the king of the Jews?”

¹³They shouted back, “Crucify him!”

¹⁴“Why?” Pilate demanded. “What crime has he committed?” But the mob roared even louder, “Crucify him!”

¹⁵So to pacify the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He ordered Jesus flogged with a lead-tipped whip, then turned him over to the Roman soldiers to be crucified.

¹⁶The soldiers took Jesus into the courtyard of the governor’s headquarters (called the Praetorium) and called out the entire regiment.

¹⁷They dressed him in a purple robe, and they wove thorn branches into a crown and put it on his head.

¹⁸Then they saluted him and taunted, “Hail! King of the Jews!”

¹⁹And they struck him on the head with a reed stick, spit on him, and dropped to their knees in mock worship.

²⁰When they were finally tired of mocking him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him again. Then they led him away to be crucified.

²¹A passerby named Simon, who was from Cyrene, was coming in from the countryside just then, and the soldiers forced him to carry Jesus’ cross. (Simon was the father of Alexander and Rufus.)

²²And they brought Jesus to a place called Golgotha (which means “Place of the Skull”).

²³They offered him wine drugged with myrrh, but he refused it.

²⁴Then the soldiers nailed him to the cross. They divided his clothes and threw dice to decide who would get each piece.

²⁵It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him.

²⁶A sign announced the charge against him. It read, “The King of the Jews.”

²⁷Two revolutionaries were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left.

²⁸

²⁹The people passing by shouted abuse, shaking their heads in mockery. “Ha! Look at you now!” they yelled at him. “You said you were going to destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days.

³⁰Well then, save yourself and come down from the cross!”

³¹The leading priests and teachers of religious law also mocked Jesus. “He saved others,” they scoffed, “but he can’t save himself!

³²Let this Messiah, this King of Israel, come down from the cross so we can see it and believe him!” Even the men who were crucified with Jesus ridiculed him.

³³At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o’clock.

³⁴Then at three o’clock Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

³⁵Some of the bystanders misunderstood and thought he was calling for the prophet Elijah.

³⁶One of them ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, holding it up to him on a reed stick so he could drink. “Wait!” he said. “Let’s see whether Elijah comes to take him down!”

³⁷Then Jesus uttered another loud cry and breathed his last.

³⁸And the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.

³⁹When the Roman officer who stood facing him saw how he had died, he exclaimed, “This man truly was the Son of God!”

⁴⁰Some women were there, watching from a distance, including Mary Magdalene, Mary (the mother of James the younger and of Joseph ), and Salome.

⁴¹They had been followers of Jesus and had cared for him while he was in Galilee. Many other women who had come with him to Jerusalem were also there.

⁴²This all happened on Friday, the day of preparation, the day before the Sabbath. As evening approached,

⁴³Joseph of Arimathea took a risk and went to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. (Joseph was an honored member of the high council, and he was waiting for the Kingdom of God to come.)

⁴⁴Pilate couldn’t believe that Jesus was already dead, so he called for the Roman officer and asked if he had died yet.

⁴⁵The officer confirmed that Jesus was dead, so Pilate told Joseph he could have the body.

⁴⁶Joseph bought a long sheet of linen cloth. Then he took Jesus’ body down from the cross, wrapped it in the cloth, and laid it in a tomb that had been carved out of the rock. Then he rolled a stone in front of the entrance.

⁴⁷Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where Jesus’ body was laid.

¹Then the LORD told Moses,

²“Give the following instructions to the people of Israel. “When you finally settle in the land I am giving you,

³you will offer special gifts as a pleasing aroma to the LORD. These gifts may take the form of a burnt offering, a sacrifice to fulfill a vow, a voluntary offering, or an offering at any of your annual festivals, and they may be taken from your herds of cattle or your flocks of sheep and goats.

⁴When you present these offerings, you must also give the LORD a grain offering of two quarts of choice flour mixed with one quart of olive oil.

⁵For each lamb offered as a burnt offering or a special sacrifice, you must also present one quart of wine as a liquid offering.

⁶“If the sacrifice is a ram, give a grain offering of four quarts of choice flour mixed with a third of a gallon of olive oil,

⁷and give a third of a gallon of wine as a liquid offering. This will be a pleasing aroma to the LORD.

⁸“When you present a young bull as a burnt offering or as a sacrifice to fulfill a vow or as a peace offering to the LORD,

⁹you must also give a grain offering of six quarts of choice flour mixed with two quarts of olive oil,

¹⁰and give two quarts of wine as a liquid offering. This will be a special gift, a pleasing aroma to the LORD.

¹¹“Each sacrifice of a bull, ram, lamb, or young goat should be prepared in this way.

¹²Follow these instructions with each offering you present.

¹³All of you native-born Israelites must follow these instructions when you offer a special gift as a pleasing aroma to the LORD.

¹⁴And if any foreigners visit you or live among you and want to present a special gift as a pleasing aroma to the LORD, they must follow these same procedures.

¹⁵Native-born Israelites and foreigners are equal before the LORD and are subject to the same decrees. This is a permanent law for you, to be observed from generation to generation.

¹⁶The same instructions and regulations will apply both to you and to the foreigners living among you.”

¹⁷Then the LORD said to Moses,

¹⁸“Give the following instructions to the people of Israel. “When you arrive in the land where I am taking you,

¹⁹and you eat the crops that grow there, you must set some aside as a sacred offering to the LORD.

²⁰Present a cake from the first of the flour you grind, and set it aside as a sacred offering, as you do with the first grain from the threshing floor.

²¹Throughout the generations to come, you are to present a sacred offering to the LORD each year from the first of your ground flour.

²²“But suppose you unintentionally fail to carry out all these commands that the LORD has given you through Moses.

²³And suppose your descendants in the future fail to do everything the LORD has commanded through Moses.

²⁴If the mistake was made unintentionally, and the community was unaware of it, the whole community must present a young bull for a burnt offering as a pleasing aroma to the LORD. It must be offered along with its prescribed grain offering and liquid offering and with one male goat for a sin offering.

²⁵With it the priest will purify the whole community of Israel, making them right with the LORD, and they will be forgiven. For it was an unintentional sin, and they have corrected it with their offerings to the LORD — the special gift and the sin offering.

²⁶The whole community of Israel will be forgiven, including the foreigners living among you, for all the people were involved in the sin.

²⁷“If one individual commits an unintentional sin, the guilty person must bring a one-year-old female goat for a sin offering.

²⁸The priest will sacrifice it to purify the guilty person before the LORD, and that person will be forgiven.

²⁹These same instructions apply both to native-born Israelites and to the foreigners living among you.

³⁰“But those who brazenly violate the LORD’s will, whether native-born Israelites or foreigners, have blasphemed the LORD, and they must be cut off from the community.

³¹Since they have treated the LORD’s word with contempt and deliberately disobeyed his command, they must be completely cut off and suffer the punishment for their guilt.”

³²One day while the people of Israel were in the wilderness, they discovered a man gathering wood on the Sabbath day.

³³The people who found him doing this took him before Moses, Aaron, and the rest of the community.

³⁴They held him in custody because they did not know what to do with him.

³⁵Then the LORD said to Moses, “The man must be put to death! The whole community must stone him outside the camp.”

³⁶So the whole community took the man outside the camp and stoned him to death, just as the LORD had commanded Moses.

³⁷Then the LORD said to Moses,

³⁸“Give the following instructions to the people of Israel: Throughout the generations to come you must make tassels for the hems of your clothing and attach them with a blue cord.

³⁹When you see the tassels, you will remember and obey all the commands of the LORD instead of following your own desires and defiling yourselves, as you are prone to do.

⁴⁰The tassels will help you remember that you must obey all my commands and be holy to your God.

⁴¹I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt that I might be your God. I am the LORD your God!”

¹When I think of all this, I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus for the benefit of you Gentiles . . .

²assuming, by the way, that you know God gave me the special responsibility of extending his grace to you Gentiles.

³As I briefly wrote earlier, God himself revealed his mysterious plan to me.

⁴As you read what I have written, you will understand my insight into this plan regarding Christ.

⁵God did not reveal it to previous generations, but now by his Spirit he has revealed it to his holy apostles and prophets.

⁶And this is God’s plan: Both Gentiles and Jews who believe the Good News share equally in the riches inherited by God’s children. Both are part of the same body, and both enjoy the promise of blessings because they belong to Christ Jesus.

⁷By God’s grace and mighty power, I have been given the privilege of serving him by spreading this Good News.

⁸Though I am the least deserving of all God’s people, he graciously gave me the privilege of telling the Gentiles about the endless treasures available to them in Christ.

⁹I was chosen to explain to everyone this mysterious plan that God, the Creator of all things, had kept secret from the beginning.

¹⁰God’s purpose in all this was to use the church to display his wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

¹¹This was his eternal plan, which he carried out through Christ Jesus our Lord.

¹²Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God’s presence.

¹³So please don’t lose heart because of my trials here. I am suffering for you, so you should feel honored.

¹⁴When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father,

¹⁵the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth.

¹⁶I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit.

¹⁷Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong.

¹⁸And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.

¹⁹May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

²⁰Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.

²¹Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.

¹Then Bildad the Shuhite replied to Job:

²“How long will you go on like this? You sound like a blustering wind.

³Does God twist justice? Does the Almighty twist what is right?

⁴Your children must have sinned against him, so their punishment was well deserved.

⁵But if you pray to God and seek the favor of the Almighty,

⁶and if you are pure and live with integrity, he will surely rise up and restore your happy home.

⁷And though you started with little, you will end with much.

⁸“Just ask the previous generation. Pay attention to the experience of our ancestors.

⁹For we were born but yesterday and know nothing. Our days on earth are as fleeting as a shadow.

¹⁰But those who came before us will teach you. They will teach you the wisdom of old.

¹¹“Can papyrus reeds grow tall without a marsh? Can marsh grass flourish without water?

¹²While they are still flowering, not ready to be cut, they begin to wither more quickly than grass.

¹³The same happens to all who forget God. The hopes of the godless evaporate.

¹⁴Their confidence hangs by a thread. They are leaning on a spider’s web.

¹⁵They cling to their home for security, but it won’t last. They try to hold it tight, but it will not endure.

¹⁶The godless seem like a lush plant growing in the sunshine, its branches spreading across the garden.

¹⁷Its roots grow down through a pile of stones; it takes hold on a bed of rocks.

¹⁸But when it is uprooted, it’s as though it never existed!

¹⁹That’s the end of its life, and others spring up from the earth to replace it.

²⁰“But look, God will not reject a person of integrity, nor will he lend a hand to the wicked.

²¹He will once again fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy.

²²Those who hate you will be clothed with shame, and the home of the wicked will be destroyed.”

¹LORD, remember David and all that he suffered.

²He made a solemn promise to the LORD. He vowed to the Mighty One of Israel,

³“I will not go home; I will not let myself rest.

⁴I will not let my eyes sleep nor close my eyelids in slumber

⁵until I find a place to build a house for the LORD, a sanctuary for the Mighty One of Israel.”

⁶We heard that the Ark was in Ephrathah; then we found it in the distant countryside of Jaar.

⁷Let us go to the sanctuary of the LORD; let us worship at the footstool of his throne.

⁸Arise, O LORD, and enter your resting place, along with the Ark, the symbol of your power.

⁹May your priests be clothed in godliness; may your loyal servants sing for joy.

¹⁰For the sake of your servant David, do not reject the king you have anointed.

¹¹The LORD swore an oath to David with a promise he will never take back: “I will place one of your descendants on your throne.

¹²If your descendants obey the terms of my covenant and the laws that I teach them, then your royal line will continue forever and ever.”

¹³For the LORD has chosen Jerusalem ; he has desired it for his home.

¹⁴“This is my resting place forever,” he said. “I will live here, for this is the home I desired.

¹⁵I will bless this city and make it prosperous; I will satisfy its poor with food.

¹⁶I will clothe its priests with godliness; its faithful servants will sing for joy.

¹⁷Here I will increase the power of David; my anointed one will be a light for my people.

¹⁸I will clothe his enemies with shame, but he will be a glorious king.”

¹Listen as Wisdom calls out! Hear as understanding raises her voice!

²On the hilltop along the road, she takes her stand at the crossroads.

³By the gates at the entrance to the town, on the road leading in, she cries aloud,

⁴“I call to you, to all of you! I raise my voice to all people.

⁵You simple people, use good judgment. You foolish people, show some understanding.

⁶Listen to me! For I have important things to tell you. Everything I say is right,

⁷for I speak the truth and detest every kind of deception.

⁸My advice is wholesome. There is nothing devious or crooked in it.

⁹My words are plain to anyone with understanding, clear to those with knowledge.

¹⁰Choose my instruction rather than silver, and knowledge rather than pure gold.

¹¹For wisdom is far more valuable than rubies. Nothing you desire can compare with it.

¹²“I, Wisdom, live together with good judgment. I know where to discover knowledge and discernment.

¹³All who fear the LORD will hate evil. Therefore, I hate pride and arrogance, corruption and perverse speech.

¹⁴Common sense and success belong to me. Insight and strength are mine.

¹⁵Because of me, kings reign, and rulers make just decrees.

¹⁶Rulers lead with my help, and nobles make righteous judgments.

¹⁷“I love all who love me. Those who search will surely find me.

¹⁸I have riches and honor, as well as enduring wealth and justice.

¹⁹My gifts are better than gold, even the purest gold, my wages better than sterling silver!

²⁰I walk in righteousness, in paths of justice.

²¹Those who love me inherit wealth. I will fill their treasuries.

²²“The LORD formed me from the beginning, before he created anything else.

²³I was appointed in ages past, at the very first, before the earth began.

²⁴I was born before the oceans were created, before the springs bubbled forth their waters.

²⁵Before the mountains were formed, before the hills, I was born —

²⁶before he had made the earth and fields and the first handfuls of soil.

²⁷I was there when he established the heavens, when he drew the horizon on the oceans.

²⁸I was there when he set the clouds above, when he established springs deep in the earth.

²⁹I was there when he set the limits of the seas, so they would not spread beyond their boundaries. And when he marked off the earth’s foundations,

³⁰I was the architect at his side. I was his constant delight, rejoicing always in his presence.

³¹And how happy I was with the world he created; how I rejoiced with the human family!

³²“And so, my children, listen to me, for all who follow my ways are joyful.

³³Listen to my instruction and be wise. Don’t ignore it.

³⁴Joyful are those who listen to me, watching for me daily at my gates, waiting for me outside my home!

³⁵For whoever finds me finds life and receives favor from the LORD.

³⁶But those who miss me injure themselves. All who hate me love death.”

¹One day the group of prophets came to Elisha and told him, “As you can see, this place where we meet with you is too small.

²Let’s go down to the Jordan River, where there are plenty of logs. There we can build a new place for us to meet.” “All right,” he told them, “go ahead.”

³“Please come with us,” someone suggested. “I will,” he said.

⁴So he went with them. When they arrived at the Jordan, they began cutting down trees.

⁵But as one of them was cutting a tree, his ax head fell into the river. “Oh, sir!” he cried. “It was a borrowed ax!”

⁶“Where did it fall?” the man of God asked. When he showed him the place, Elisha cut a stick and threw it into the water at that spot. Then the ax head floated to the surface.

⁷“Grab it,” Elisha said. And the man reached out and grabbed it.

⁸When the king of Aram was at war with Israel, he would confer with his officers and say, “We will mobilize our forces at such and such a place.”

⁹But immediately Elisha, the man of God, would warn the king of Israel, “Do not go near that place, for the Arameans are planning to mobilize their troops there.”

¹⁰So the king of Israel would send word to the place indicated by the man of God. Time and again Elisha warned the king, so that he would be on the alert there.

¹¹The king of Aram became very upset over this. He called his officers together and demanded, “Which of you is the traitor? Who has been informing the king of Israel of my plans?”

¹²“It’s not us, my lord the king,” one of the officers replied. “Elisha, the prophet in Israel, tells the king of Israel even the words you speak in the privacy of your bedroom!”

¹³“Go and find out where he is,” the king commanded, “so I can send troops to seize him.” And the report came back: “Elisha is at Dothan.”

¹⁴So one night the king of Aram sent a great army with many chariots and horses to surround the city.

¹⁵When the servant of the man of God got up early the next morning and went outside, there were troops, horses, and chariots everywhere. “Oh, sir, what will we do now?” the young man cried to Elisha.

¹⁶“Don’t be afraid!” Elisha told him. “For there are more on our side than on theirs!”

¹⁷Then Elisha prayed, “O LORD, open his eyes and let him see!” The LORD opened the young man’s eyes, and when he looked up, he saw that the hillside around Elisha was filled with horses and chariots of fire.

¹⁸As the Aramean army advanced toward him, Elisha prayed, “O LORD, please make them blind.” So the LORD struck them with blindness as Elisha had asked.

¹⁹Then Elisha went out and told them, “You have come the wrong way! This isn’t the right city! Follow me, and I will take you to the man you are looking for.” And he led them to the city of Samaria.

²⁰As soon as they had entered Samaria, Elisha prayed, “O LORD, now open their eyes and let them see.” So the LORD opened their eyes, and they discovered that they were in the middle of Samaria.

²¹When the king of Israel saw them, he shouted to Elisha, “My father, should I kill them? Should I kill them?”

²²“Of course not!” Elisha replied. “Do we kill prisoners of war? Give them food and drink and send them home again to their master.”

²³So the king made a great feast for them and then sent them home to their master. After that, the Aramean raiders stayed away from the land of Israel.

²⁴Some time later, however, King Ben-hadad of Aram mustered his entire army and besieged Samaria.

²⁵As a result, there was a great famine in the city. The siege lasted so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty pieces of silver, and a cup of dove’s dung sold for five pieces of silver.

²⁶One day as the king of Israel was walking along the wall of the city, a woman called to him, “Please help me, my lord the king!”

²⁷He answered, “If the LORD doesn’t help you, what can I do? I have neither food from the threshing floor nor wine from the press to give you.”

²⁸But then the king asked, “What is the matter?” She replied, “This woman said to me: ‘Come on, let’s eat your son today, then we will eat my son tomorrow.’

²⁹So we cooked my son and ate him. Then the next day I said to her, ‘Kill your son so we can eat him,’ but she has hidden her son.”

³⁰When the king heard this, he tore his clothes in despair. And as the king walked along the wall, the people could see that he was wearing burlap under his robe next to his skin.

³¹“May God strike me and even kill me if I don’t separate Elisha’s head from his shoulders this very day,” the king vowed.

³²Elisha was sitting in his house with the elders of Israel when the king sent a messenger to summon him. But before the messenger arrived, Elisha said to the elders, “A murderer has sent a man to cut off my head. When he arrives, shut the door and keep him out. We will soon hear his master’s steps following him.”

³³While Elisha was still saying this, the messenger arrived. And the king said, “All this misery is from the LORD! Why should I wait for the LORD any longer?”

¹Then the LORD thundered, “Bring on the men appointed to punish the city! Tell them to bring their weapons with them!”

²Six men soon appeared from the upper gate that faces north, each carrying a deadly weapon in his hand. With them was a man dressed in linen, who carried a writer’s case at his side. They all went into the Temple courtyard and stood beside the bronze altar.

³Then the glory of the God of Israel rose up from between the cherubim, where it had rested, and moved to the entrance of the Temple. And the LORD called to the man dressed in linen who was carrying the writer’s case.

⁴He said to him, “Walk through the streets of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of all who weep and sigh because of the detestable sins being committed in their city.”

⁵Then I heard the LORD say to the other men, “Follow him through the city and kill everyone whose forehead is not marked. Show no mercy; have no pity!

⁶Kill them all — old and young, girls and women and little children. But do not touch anyone with the mark. Begin right here at the Temple.” So they began by killing the seventy leaders.

⁷“Defile the Temple!” the LORD commanded. “Fill its courtyards with corpses. Go!” So they went and began killing throughout the city.

⁸While they were out killing, I was all alone. I fell face down on the ground and cried out, “O Sovereign LORD! Will your fury against Jerusalem wipe out everyone left in Israel?”

⁹Then he said to me, “The sins of the people of Israel and Judah are very, very great. The entire land is full of murder; the city is filled with injustice. They are saying, ‘The LORD doesn’t see it! The LORD has abandoned the land!’

¹⁰So I will not spare them or have any pity on them. I will fully repay them for all they have done.”

¹¹Then the man in linen clothing, who carried the writer’s case, reported back and said, “I have done as you commanded.”

¹When the uproar was over, Paul sent for the believers and encouraged them. Then he said good-bye and left for Macedonia.

²While there, he encouraged the believers in all the towns he passed through. Then he traveled down to Greece,

³where he stayed for three months. He was preparing to sail back to Syria when he discovered a plot by some Jews against his life, so he decided to return through Macedonia.

⁴Several men were traveling with him. They were Sopater son of Pyrrhus from Berea; Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessalonica; Gaius from Derbe; Timothy; and Tychicus and Trophimus from the province of Asia.

⁵They went on ahead and waited for us at Troas.

⁶After the Passover ended, we boarded a ship at Philippi in Macedonia and five days later joined them in Troas, where we stayed a week.

⁷On the first day of the week, we gathered with the local believers to share in the Lord’s Supper. Paul was preaching to them, and since he was leaving the next day, he kept talking until midnight.

⁸The upstairs room where we met was lighted with many flickering lamps.

⁹As Paul spoke on and on, a young man named Eutychus, sitting on the windowsill, became very drowsy. Finally, he fell sound asleep and dropped three stories to his death below.

¹⁰Paul went down, bent over him, and took him into his arms. “Don’t worry,” he said, “he’s alive!”

¹¹Then they all went back upstairs, shared in the Lord’s Supper, and ate together. Paul continued talking to them until dawn, and then he left.

¹²Meanwhile, the young man was taken home alive and well, and everyone was greatly relieved.

¹³Paul went by land to Assos, where he had arranged for us to join him, while we traveled by ship.

¹⁴He joined us there, and we sailed together to Mitylene.

¹⁵The next day we sailed past the island of Kios. The following day we crossed to the island of Samos, and a day later we arrived at Miletus.

¹⁶Paul had decided to sail on past Ephesus, for he didn’t want to spend any more time in the province of Asia. He was hurrying to get to Jerusalem, if possible, in time for the Festival of Pentecost.

¹⁷But when we landed at Miletus, he sent a message to the elders of the church at Ephesus, asking them to come and meet him.

¹⁸When they arrived he declared, “You know that from the day I set foot in the province of Asia until now

¹⁹I have done the Lord’s work humbly and with many tears. I have endured the trials that came to me from the plots of the Jews.

²⁰I never shrank back from telling you what you needed to hear, either publicly or in your homes.

²¹I have had one message for Jews and Greeks alike — the necessity of repenting from sin and turning to God, and of having faith in our Lord Jesus.

²²“And now I am bound by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem. I don’t know what awaits me,

²³except that the Holy Spirit tells me in city after city that jail and suffering lie ahead.

²⁴But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus — the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God.

²⁵“And now I know that none of you to whom I have preached the Kingdom will ever see me again.

²⁶I declare today that I have been faithful. If anyone suffers eternal death, it’s not my fault,

²⁷for I didn’t shrink from declaring all that God wants you to know.

²⁸“So guard yourselves and God’s people. Feed and shepherd God’s flock — his church, purchased with his own blood — over which the Holy Spirit has appointed you as leaders.

²⁹I know that false teachers, like vicious wolves, will come in among you after I leave, not sparing the flock.

³⁰Even some men from your own group will rise up and distort the truth in order to draw a following.

³¹Watch out! Remember the three years I was with you — my constant watch and care over you night and day, and my many tears for you.

³²“And now I entrust you to God and the message of his grace that is able to build you up and give you an inheritance with all those he has set apart for himself.

³³“I have never coveted anyone’s silver or gold or fine clothes.

³⁴You know that these hands of mine have worked to supply my own needs and even the needs of those who were with me.

³⁵And I have been a constant example of how you can help those in need by working hard. You should remember the words of the Lord Jesus: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

³⁶When he had finished speaking, he knelt and prayed with them.

³⁷They all cried as they embraced and kissed him good-bye.

³⁸They were sad most of all because he had said that they would never see him again. Then they escorted him down to the ship.