Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us,

²just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.

³With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus,

⁴so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

⁵In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron.

⁶Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly.

⁷But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both very old.

⁸Once when Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God,

⁹he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense.

¹⁰And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside.

¹¹Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense.

¹²When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear.

¹³But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John.

¹⁴He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth,

¹⁵for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born.

¹⁶He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God.

¹⁷And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

¹⁸Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.”

¹⁹The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news.

²⁰And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.”

²¹Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering why he stayed so long in the temple.

²²When he came out, he could not speak to them. They realized he had seen a vision in the temple, for he kept making signs to them but remained unable to speak.

²³When his time of service was completed, he returned home.

²⁴After this his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion.

²⁵“The Lord has done this for me,” she said. “In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.”

²⁶In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee,

²⁷to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.

²⁸The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

²⁹Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.

³⁰But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God.

³¹You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.

³²He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,

³³and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

³⁴“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

³⁵The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.

³⁶Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month.

³⁷For no word from God will ever fail.”

³⁸“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

³⁹At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea,

⁴⁰where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth.

⁴¹When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

⁴²In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!

⁴³But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

⁴⁴As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.

⁴⁵Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!”

⁴⁶And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord

⁴⁷and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

⁴⁸for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed,

⁴⁹for the Mighty One has done great things for me— holy is his name.

⁵⁰His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation.

⁵¹He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.

⁵²He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.

⁵³He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.

⁵⁴He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful

⁵⁵to Abraham and his descendants forever, just as he promised our ancestors.”

⁵⁶Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home.

⁵⁷When it was time for Elizabeth to have her baby, she gave birth to a son.

⁵⁸Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they shared her joy.

⁵⁹On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him after his father Zechariah,

⁶⁰but his mother spoke up and said, “No! He is to be called John.”

⁶¹They said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who has that name.”

⁶²Then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the child.

⁶³He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone’s astonishment he wrote, “His name is John.”

⁶⁴Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue set free, and he began to speak, praising God.

⁶⁵All the neighbors were filled with awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about all these things.

⁶⁶Everyone who heard this wondered about it, asking, “What then is this child going to be?” For the Lord’s hand was with him.

⁶⁷His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied:

⁶⁸“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them.

⁶⁹He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David

⁷⁰(as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),

⁷¹salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us—

⁷²to show mercy to our ancestors and to remember his holy covenant,

⁷³the oath he swore to our father Abraham:

⁷⁴to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear

⁷⁵in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

⁷⁶And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him,

⁷⁷to give his people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins,

⁷⁸because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven

⁷⁹to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.”

⁸⁰And the child grew and became strong in spirit; and he lived in the wilderness until he appeared publicly to Israel.

¹The LORD said to Moses,

²“Speak to the Israelites and get twelve staffs from them, one from the leader of each of their ancestral tribes. Write the name of each man on his staff.

³On the staff of Levi write Aaron’s name, for there must be one staff for the head of each ancestral tribe.

⁴Place them in the tent of meeting in front of the ark of the covenant law, where I meet with you.

⁵The staff belonging to the man I choose will sprout, and I will rid myself of this constant grumbling against you by the Israelites.”

⁶So Moses spoke to the Israelites, and their leaders gave him twelve staffs, one for the leader of each of their ancestral tribes, and Aaron’s staff was among them.

⁷Moses placed the staffs before the LORD in the tent of the covenant law.

⁸The next day Moses entered the tent and saw that Aaron’s staff, which represented the tribe of Levi, had not only sprouted but had budded, blossomed and produced almonds.

⁹Then Moses brought out all the staffs from the LORD’s presence to all the Israelites. They looked at them, and each of the leaders took his own staff.

¹⁰The LORD said to Moses, “Put back Aaron’s staff in front of the ark of the covenant law, to be kept as a sign to the rebellious. This will put an end to their grumbling against me, so that they will not die.”

¹¹Moses did just as the LORD commanded him.

¹²The Israelites said to Moses, “We will die! We are lost, we are all lost!

¹³Anyone who even comes near the tabernacle of the LORD will die. Are we all going to die?”

¹Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children

²and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

³But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.

⁴Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.

⁵For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

⁶Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.

⁷Therefore do not be partners with them.

⁸For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light

⁹(for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth)

¹⁰and find out what pleases the Lord.

¹¹Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.

¹²It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.

¹³But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light.

¹⁴This is why it is said: “Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

¹⁵Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise,

¹⁶making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.

¹⁷Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.

¹⁸Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit,

¹⁹speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord,

²⁰always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

²¹Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

²²Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.

²³For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.

²⁴Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

²⁵Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her

²⁶to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word,

²⁷and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

²⁸In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.

²⁹After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church—

³⁰for we are members of his body.

³¹“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”

³²This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.

³³However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

¹“I loathe my very life; therefore I will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the bitterness of my soul.

²I say to God: Do not declare me guilty, but tell me what charges you have against me.

³Does it please you to oppress me, to spurn the work of your hands, while you smile on the plans of the wicked?

⁴Do you have eyes of flesh? Do you see as a mortal sees?

⁵Are your days like those of a mortal or your years like those of a strong man,

⁶that you must search out my faults and probe after my sin—

⁷though you know that I am not guilty and that no one can rescue me from your hand?

⁸“Your hands shaped me and made me. Will you now turn and destroy me?

⁹Remember that you molded me like clay. Will you now turn me to dust again?

¹⁰Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese,

¹¹clothe me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews?

¹²You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit.

¹³“But this is what you concealed in your heart, and I know that this was in your mind:

¹⁴If I sinned, you would be watching me and would not let my offense go unpunished.

¹⁵If I am guilty—woe to me! Even if I am innocent, I cannot lift my head, for I am full of shame and drowned in my affliction.

¹⁶If I hold my head high, you stalk me like a lion and again display your awesome power against me.

¹⁷You bring new witnesses against me and increase your anger toward me; your forces come against me wave upon wave.

¹⁸“Why then did you bring me out of the womb? I wish I had died before any eye saw me.

¹⁹If only I had never come into being, or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave!

²⁰Are not my few days almost over? Turn away from me so I can have a moment’s joy

²¹before I go to the place of no return, to the land of gloom and utter darkness,

²²to the land of deepest night, of utter darkness and disorder, where even the light is like darkness.”

¹A song of ascents. Praise the LORD, all you servants of the LORD who minister by night in the house of the LORD.

²Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the LORD.

³May the LORD bless you from Zion, he who is the Maker of heaven and earth.

¹The proverbs of Solomon: A wise son brings joy to his father, but a foolish son brings grief to his mother.

²Ill-gotten treasures have no lasting value, but righteousness delivers from death.

³The LORD does not let the righteous go hungry, but he thwarts the craving of the wicked.

⁴Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth.

⁵He who gathers crops in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son.

⁶Blessings crown the head of the righteous, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.

⁷The name of the righteous is used in blessings, but the name of the wicked will rot.

⁸The wise in heart accept commands, but a chattering fool comes to ruin.

⁹Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but whoever takes crooked paths will be found out.

¹⁰Whoever winks maliciously causes grief, and a chattering fool comes to ruin.

¹¹The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.

¹²Hatred stirs up conflict, but love covers over all wrongs.

¹³Wisdom is found on the lips of the discerning, but a rod is for the back of one who has no sense.

¹⁴The wise store up knowledge, but the mouth of a fool invites ruin.

¹⁵The wealth of the rich is their fortified city, but poverty is the ruin of the poor.

¹⁶The wages of the righteous is life, but the earnings of the wicked are sin and death.

¹⁷Whoever heeds discipline shows the way to life, but whoever ignores correction leads others astray.

¹⁸Whoever conceals hatred with lying lips and spreads slander is a fool.

¹⁹Sin is not ended by multiplying words, but the prudent hold their tongues.

²⁰The tongue of the righteous is choice silver, but the heart of the wicked is of little value.

²¹The lips of the righteous nourish many, but fools die for lack of sense.

²²The blessing of the LORD brings wealth, without painful toil for it.

²³A fool finds pleasure in wicked schemes, but a person of understanding delights in wisdom.

²⁴What the wicked dread will overtake them; what the righteous desire will be granted.

²⁵When the storm has swept by, the wicked are gone, but the righteous stand firm forever.

²⁶As vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so are sluggards to those who send them.

²⁷The fear of the LORD adds length to life, but the years of the wicked are cut short.

²⁸The prospect of the righteous is joy, but the hopes of the wicked come to nothing.

²⁹The way of the LORD is a refuge for the blameless, but it is the ruin of those who do evil.

³⁰The righteous will never be uprooted, but the wicked will not remain in the land.

³¹From the mouth of the righteous comes the fruit of wisdom, but a perverse tongue will be silenced.

³²The lips of the righteous know what finds favor, but the mouth of the wicked only what is perverse.

¹Now Elisha had said to the woman whose son he had restored to life, “Go away with your family and stay for a while wherever you can, because the LORD has decreed a famine in the land that will last seven years.”

²The woman proceeded to do as the man of God said. She and her family went away and stayed in the land of the Philistines seven years.

³At the end of the seven years she came back from the land of the Philistines and went to appeal to the king for her house and land.

⁴The king was talking to Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, and had said, “Tell me about all the great things Elisha has done.”

⁵Just as Gehazi was telling the king how Elisha had restored the dead to life, the woman whose son Elisha had brought back to life came to appeal to the king for her house and land. Gehazi said, “This is the woman, my lord the king, and this is her son whom Elisha restored to life.”

⁶The king asked the woman about it, and she told him. Then he assigned an official to her case and said to him, “Give back everything that belonged to her, including all the income from her land from the day she left the country until now.”

⁷Elisha went to Damascus, and Ben-Hadad king of Aram was ill. When the king was told, “The man of God has come all the way up here,”

⁸he said to Hazael, “Take a gift with you and go to meet the man of God. Consult the LORD through him; ask him, ‘Will I recover from this illness?’ ”

⁹Hazael went to meet Elisha, taking with him as a gift forty camel-loads of all the finest wares of Damascus. He went in and stood before him, and said, “Your son Ben-Hadad king of Aram has sent me to ask, ‘Will I recover from this illness?’ ”

¹⁰Elisha answered, “Go and say to him, ‘You will certainly recover.’ Nevertheless, the LORD has revealed to me that he will in fact die.”

¹¹He stared at him with a fixed gaze until Hazael was embarrassed. Then the man of God began to weep.

¹²“Why is my lord weeping?” asked Hazael. “Because I know the harm you will do to the Israelites,” he answered. “You will set fire to their fortified places, kill their young men with the sword, dash their little children to the ground, and rip open their pregnant women.”

¹³Hazael said, “How could your servant, a mere dog, accomplish such a feat?” “The LORD has shown me that you will become king of Aram,” answered Elisha.

¹⁴Then Hazael left Elisha and returned to his master. When Ben-Hadad asked, “What did Elisha say to you?” Hazael replied, “He told me that you would certainly recover.”

¹⁵But the next day he took a thick cloth, soaked it in water and spread it over the king’s face, so that he died. Then Hazael succeeded him as king.

¹⁶In the fifth year of Joram son of Ahab king of Israel, when Jehoshaphat was king of Judah, Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat began his reign as king of Judah.

¹⁷He was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years.

¹⁸He followed the ways of the kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab had done, for he married a daughter of Ahab. He did evil in the eyes of the LORD.

¹⁹Nevertheless, for the sake of his servant David, the LORD was not willing to destroy Judah. He had promised to maintain a lamp for David and his descendants forever.

²⁰In the time of Jehoram, Edom rebelled against Judah and set up its own king.

²¹So Jehoram went to Zair with all his chariots. The Edomites surrounded him and his chariot commanders, but he rose up and broke through by night; his army, however, fled back home.

²²To this day Edom has been in rebellion against Judah. Libnah revolted at the same time.

²³As for the other events of Jehoram’s reign, and all he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?

²⁴Jehoram rested with his ancestors and was buried with them in the City of David. And Ahaziah his son succeeded him as king.

²⁵In the twelfth year of Joram son of Ahab king of Israel, Ahaziah son of Jehoram king of Judah began to reign.

²⁶Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem one year. His mother’s name was Athaliah, a granddaughter of Omri king of Israel.

²⁷He followed the ways of the house of Ahab and did evil in the eyes of the LORD, as the house of Ahab had done, for he was related by marriage to Ahab’s family.

²⁸Ahaziah went with Joram son of Ahab to war against Hazael king of Aram at Ramoth Gilead. The Arameans wounded Joram;

²⁹so King Joram returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds the Arameans had inflicted on him at Ramoth in his battle with Hazael king of Aram. Then Ahaziah son of Jehoram king of Judah went down to Jezreel to see Joram son of Ahab, because he had been wounded.

¹Then the Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the gate of the house of the LORD that faces east. There at the entrance of the gate were twenty-five men, and I saw among them Jaazaniah son of Azzur and Pelatiah son of Benaiah, leaders of the people.

²The LORD said to me, “Son of man, these are the men who are plotting evil and giving wicked advice in this city.

³They say, ‘Haven’t our houses been recently rebuilt? This city is a pot, and we are the meat in it.’

⁴Therefore prophesy against them; prophesy, son of man.”

⁵Then the Spirit of the LORD came on me, and he told me to say: “This is what the LORD says: That is what you are saying, you leaders in Israel, but I know what is going through your mind.

⁶You have killed many people in this city and filled its streets with the dead.

⁷“Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: The bodies you have thrown there are the meat and this city is the pot, but I will drive you out of it.

⁸You fear the sword, and the sword is what I will bring against you, declares the Sovereign LORD.

⁹I will drive you out of the city and deliver you into the hands of foreigners and inflict punishment on you.

¹⁰You will fall by the sword, and I will execute judgment on you at the borders of Israel. Then you will know that I am the LORD.

¹¹This city will not be a pot for you, nor will you be the meat in it; I will execute judgment on you at the borders of Israel.

¹²And you will know that I am the LORD, for you have not followed my decrees or kept my laws but have conformed to the standards of the nations around you.”

¹³Now as I was prophesying, Pelatiah son of Benaiah died. Then I fell facedown and cried out in a loud voice, “Alas, Sovereign LORD! Will you completely destroy the remnant of Israel?”

¹⁴The word of the LORD came to me:

¹⁵“Son of man, the people of Jerusalem have said of your fellow exiles and all the other Israelites, ‘They are far away from the LORD; this land was given to us as our possession.’

¹⁶“Therefore say: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Although I sent them far away among the nations and scattered them among the countries, yet for a little while I have been a sanctuary for them in the countries where they have gone.’

¹⁷“Therefore say: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will gather you from the nations and bring you back from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you back the land of Israel again.’

¹⁸“They will return to it and remove all its vile images and detestable idols.

¹⁹I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.

²⁰Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God.

²¹But as for those whose hearts are devoted to their vile images and detestable idols, I will bring down on their own heads what they have done, declares the Sovereign LORD.”

²²Then the cherubim, with the wheels beside them, spread their wings, and the glory of the God of Israel was above them.

²³The glory of the LORD went up from within the city and stopped above the mountain east of it.

²⁴The Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the exiles in Babylonia in the vision given by the Spirit of God. Then the vision I had seen went up from me,

²⁵and I told the exiles everything the LORD had shown me.

¹“Brothers and fathers, listen now to my defense.”

²When they heard him speak to them in Aramaic, they became very quiet. Then Paul said:

³“I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city. I studied under Gamaliel and was thoroughly trained in the law of our ancestors. I was just as zealous for God as any of you are today.

⁴I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison,

⁵as the high priest and all the Council can themselves testify. I even obtained letters from them to their associates in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished.

⁶“About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me.

⁷I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, ‘Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?’

⁸“ ‘Who are you, Lord?’ I asked. “ ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting,’ he replied.

⁹My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me.

¹⁰“ ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ I asked. “ ‘Get up,’ the Lord said, ‘and go into Damascus. There you will be told all that you have been assigned to do.’

¹¹My companions led me by the hand into Damascus, because the brilliance of the light had blinded me.

¹²“A man named Ananias came to see me. He was a devout observer of the law and highly respected by all the Jews living there.

¹³He stood beside me and said, ‘Brother Saul, receive your sight!’ And at that very moment I was able to see him.

¹⁴“Then he said: ‘The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth.

¹⁵You will be his witness to all people of what you have seen and heard.

¹⁶And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.’

¹⁷“When I returned to Jerusalem and was praying at the temple, I fell into a trance

¹⁸and saw the Lord speaking to me. ‘Quick!’ he said. ‘Leave Jerusalem immediately, because the people here will not accept your testimony about me.’

¹⁹“ ‘Lord,’ I replied, ‘these people know that I went from one synagogue to another to imprison and beat those who believe in you.

²⁰And when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I stood there giving my approval and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him.’

²¹“Then the Lord said to me, ‘Go; I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’ ”

²²The crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they raised their voices and shouted, “Rid the earth of him! He’s not fit to live!”

²³As they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust into the air,

²⁴the commander ordered that Paul be taken into the barracks. He directed that he be flogged and interrogated in order to find out why the people were shouting at him like this.

²⁵As they stretched him out to flog him, Paul said to the centurion standing there, “Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who hasn’t even been found guilty?”

²⁶When the centurion heard this, he went to the commander and reported it. “What are you going to do?” he asked. “This man is a Roman citizen.”

²⁷The commander went to Paul and asked, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?” “Yes, I am,” he answered.

²⁸Then the commander said, “I had to pay a lot of money for my citizenship.” “But I was born a citizen,” Paul replied.

²⁹Those who were about to interrogate him withdrew immediately. The commander himself was alarmed when he realized that he had put Paul, a Roman citizen, in chains.

³⁰The commander wanted to find out exactly why Paul was being accused by the Jews. So the next day he released him and ordered the chief priests and all the members of the Sanhedrin to assemble. Then he brought Paul and had him stand before them.