Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹And he said to them, “Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.”

²Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them,

³and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.

⁴And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus.

⁵Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”

⁶He did not know what to say, for they were terrified.

⁷Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”

⁸Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.

⁹As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

¹⁰So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean.

¹¹Then they asked him, “Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?”

¹²He said to them, “Elijah is indeed coming first to restore all things. How then is it written about the Son of Man, that he is to go through many sufferings and be treated with contempt?

¹³But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written about him.”

¹⁴When they came to the disciples, they saw a great crowd around them, and some scribes arguing with them.

¹⁵When the whole crowd saw him, they were immediately overcome with awe, and they ran forward to greet him.

¹⁶He asked them, “What are you arguing about with them?”

¹⁷Someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought you my son; he has a spirit that makes him unable to speak;

¹⁸and whenever it seizes him, it dashes him down; and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid; and I asked your disciples to cast it out, but they could not do so.”

¹⁹He answered them, “You faithless generation, how much longer must I be among you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him to me.”

²⁰And they brought the boy to him. When the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth.

²¹Jesus asked the father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood.

²²It has often cast him into the fire and into the water, to destroy him; but if you are able to do anything, have pity on us and help us.”

²³Jesus said to him, “If you are able! — All things can be done for the one who believes.”

²⁴Immediately the father of the child cried out, “I believe; help my unbelief!”

²⁵When Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You spirit that keeps this boy from speaking and hearing, I command you, come out of him, and never enter him again!”

²⁶After crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, “He is dead.”

²⁷But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he was able to stand.

²⁸When he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?”

²⁹He said to them, “This kind can come out only through prayer.”

³⁰They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it;

³¹for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.”

³²But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.

³³Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?”

³⁴But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest.

³⁵He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”

³⁶Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them,

³⁷“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

³⁸John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.”

³⁹But Jesus said, “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me.

⁴⁰Whoever is not against us is for us.

⁴¹For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.

⁴²“If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea.

⁴³If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.

⁴⁴

⁴⁵And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell.

⁴⁶

⁴⁷And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell,

⁴⁸where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.

⁴⁹“For everyone will be salted with fire.

⁵⁰Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

¹Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him, and charged him, “You shall not marry one of the Canaanite women.

²Go at once to Paddan-aram to the house of Bethuel, your mother’s father; and take as wife from there one of the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother.

³May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and numerous, that you may become a company of peoples.

⁴May he give to you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your offspring with you, so that you may take possession of the land where you now live as an alien — land that God gave to Abraham.”

⁵Thus Isaac sent Jacob away; and he went to Paddan-aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, Jacob’s and Esau’s mother.

⁶Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Paddan-aram to take a wife from there, and that as he blessed him he charged him, “You shall not marry one of the Canaanite women,”

⁷and that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother and gone to Paddan-aram.

⁸So when Esau saw that the Canaanite women did not please his father Isaac,

⁹Esau went to Ishmael and took Mahalath daughter of Abraham’s son Ishmael, and sister of Nebaioth, to be his wife in addition to the wives he had.

¹⁰Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran.

¹¹He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place.

¹²And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

¹³And the LORD stood beside him and said, “I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring;

¹⁴and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring.

¹⁵Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

¹⁶Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the LORD is in this place — and I did not know it!”

¹⁷And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

¹⁸So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it.

¹⁹He called that place Bethel; but the name of the city was Luz at the first.

²⁰Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear,

²¹so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the LORD shall be my God,

²²and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house; and of all that you give me I will surely give one-tenth to you.”

¹If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy,

²make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

³Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.

⁴Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.

⁵Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

⁶who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,

⁷but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form,

⁸he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross.

⁹Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name,

¹⁰so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

¹¹and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

¹²Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;

¹³for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

¹⁴Do all things without murmuring and arguing,

¹⁵so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine like stars in the world.

¹⁶It is by your holding fast to the word of life that I can boast on the day of Christ that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.

¹⁷But even if I am being poured out as a libation over the sacrifice and the offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you —

¹⁸and in the same way you also must be glad and rejoice with me.

¹⁹I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I may be cheered by news of you.

²⁰I have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare.

²¹All of them are seeking their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.

²²But Timothy’s worth you know, how like a son with a father he has served with me in the work of the gospel.

²³I hope therefore to send him as soon as I see how things go with me;

²⁴and I trust in the Lord that I will also come soon.

²⁵Still, I think it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus — my brother and co-worker and fellow soldier, your messenger and minister to my need;

²⁶for he has been longing for all of you, and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill.

²⁷He was indeed so ill that he nearly died. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, so that I would not have one sorrow after another.

²⁸I am the more eager to send him, therefore, in order that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious.

²⁹Welcome him then in the Lord with all joy, and honor such people,

³⁰because he came close to death for the work of Christ, risking his life to make up for those services that you could not give me.

¹But as for you, teach what is consistent with sound doctrine.

²Tell the older men to be temperate, serious, prudent, and sound in faith, in love, and in endurance.

³Likewise, tell the older women to be reverent in behavior, not to be slanderers or slaves to drink; they are to teach what is good,

⁴so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children,

⁵to be self-controlled, chaste, good managers of the household, kind, being submissive to their husbands, so that the word of God may not be discredited.

⁶Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled.

⁷Show yourself in all respects a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, gravity,

⁸and sound speech that cannot be censured; then any opponent will be put to shame, having nothing evil to say of us.

⁹Tell slaves to be submissive to their masters and to give satisfaction in every respect; they are not to talk back,

¹⁰not to pilfer, but to show complete and perfect fidelity, so that in everything they may be an ornament to the doctrine of God our Savior.

¹¹For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all,

¹²training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly,

¹³while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.

¹⁴He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.

¹⁵Declare these things; exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one look down on you.

¹Job again took up his discourse and said:

²“O that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me;

³when his lamp shone over my head, and by his light I walked through darkness;

⁴when I was in my prime, when the friendship of God was upon my tent;

⁵when the Almighty was still with me, when my children were around me;

⁶when my steps were washed with milk, and the rock poured out for me streams of oil!

⁷When I went out to the gate of the city, when I took my seat in the square,

⁸the young men saw me and withdrew, and the aged rose up and stood;

⁹the nobles refrained from talking, and laid their hands on their mouths;

¹⁰the voices of princes were hushed, and their tongues stuck to the roof of their mouths.

¹¹When the ear heard, it commended me, and when the eye saw, it approved;

¹²because I delivered the poor who cried, and the orphan who had no helper.

¹³The blessing of the wretched came upon me, and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy.

¹⁴I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; my justice was like a robe and a turban.

¹⁵I was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame.

¹⁶I was a father to the needy, and I championed the cause of the stranger.

¹⁷I broke the fangs of the unrighteous, and made them drop their prey from their teeth.

¹⁸Then I thought, ‘I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days like the phoenix;

¹⁹my roots spread out to the waters, with the dew all night on my branches;

²⁰my glory was fresh with me, and my bow ever new in my hand.’

²¹“They listened to me, and waited, and kept silence for my counsel.

²²After I spoke they did not speak again, and my word dropped upon them like dew.

²³They waited for me as for the rain; they opened their mouths as for the spring rain.

²⁴I smiled on them when they had no confidence; and the light of my countenance they did not extinguish.

²⁵I chose their way, and sat as chief, and I lived like a king among his troops, like one who comforts mourners.

¹Praise is due to you, O God, in Zion; and to you shall vows be performed,

²O you who answer prayer! To you all flesh shall come.

³When deeds of iniquity overwhelm us, you forgive our transgressions.

⁴Happy are those whom you choose and bring near to live in your courts. We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, your holy temple.

⁵By awesome deeds you answer us with deliverance, O God of our salvation; you are the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas.

⁶By your strength you established the mountains; you are girded with might.

⁷You silence the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves, the tumult of the peoples.

⁸Those who live at earth’s farthest bounds are awed by your signs; you make the gateways of the morning and the evening shout for joy.

⁹You visit the earth and water it, you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water; you provide the people with grain, for so you have prepared it.

¹⁰You water its furrows abundantly, settling its ridges, softening it with showers, and blessing its growth.

¹¹You crown the year with your bounty; your wagon tracks overflow with richness.

¹²The pastures of the wilderness overflow, the hills gird themselves with joy,

¹³the meadows clothe themselves with flocks, the valleys deck themselves with grain, they shout and sing together for joy.

¹One who is often reproved, yet remains stubborn, will suddenly be broken beyond healing.

²When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; but when the wicked rule, the people groan.

³A child who loves wisdom makes a parent glad, but to keep company with prostitutes is to squander one’s substance.

⁴By justice a king gives stability to the land, but one who makes heavy exactions ruins it.

⁵Whoever flatters a neighbor is spreading a net for the neighbor’s feet.

⁶In the transgression of the evil there is a snare, but the righteous sing and rejoice.

⁷The righteous know the rights of the poor; the wicked have no such understanding.

⁸Scoffers set a city aflame, but the wise turn away wrath.

⁹If the wise go to law with fools, there is ranting and ridicule without relief.

¹⁰The bloodthirsty hate the blameless, and they seek the life of the upright.

¹¹A fool gives full vent to anger, but the wise quietly holds it back.

¹²If a ruler listens to falsehood, all his officials will be wicked.

¹³The poor and the oppressor have this in common: the LORD gives light to the eyes of both.

¹⁴If a king judges the poor with equity, his throne will be established forever.

¹⁵The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a mother is disgraced by a neglected child.

¹⁶When the wicked are in authority, transgression increases, but the righteous will look upon their downfall.

¹⁷Discipline your children, and they will give you rest; they will give delight to your heart.

¹⁸Where there is no prophecy, the people cast off restraint, but happy are those who keep the law.

¹⁹By mere words servants are not disciplined, for though they understand, they will not give heed.

²⁰Do you see someone who is hasty in speech? There is more hope for a fool than for anyone like that.

²¹A slave pampered from childhood will come to a bad end.

²²One given to anger stirs up strife, and the hothead causes much transgression.

²³A person’s pride will bring humiliation, but one who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor.

²⁴To be a partner of a thief is to hate one’s own life; one hears the victim’s curse, but discloses nothing.

²⁵The fear of others lays a snare, but one who trusts in the LORD is secure.

²⁶Many seek the favor of a ruler, but it is from the LORD that one gets justice.

²⁷The unjust are an abomination to the righteous, but the upright are an abomination to the wicked.

¹Josiah kept a passover to the LORD in Jerusalem; they slaughtered the passover lamb on the fourteenth day of the first month.

²He appointed the priests to their offices and encouraged them in the service of the house of the LORD.

³He said to the Levites who taught all Israel and who were holy to the LORD, “Put the holy ark in the house that Solomon son of David, king of Israel, built; you need no longer carry it on your shoulders. Now serve the LORD your God and his people Israel.

⁴Make preparations by your ancestral houses by your divisions, following the written directions of King David of Israel and the written directions of his son Solomon.

⁵Take position in the holy place according to the groupings of the ancestral houses of your kindred the people, and let there be Levites for each division of an ancestral house.

⁶Slaughter the passover lamb, sanctify yourselves, and on behalf of your kindred make preparations, acting according to the word of the LORD by Moses.”

⁷Then Josiah contributed to the people, as passover offerings for all that were present, lambs and kids from the flock to the number of thirty thousand, and three thousand bulls; these were from the king’s possessions.

⁸His officials contributed willingly to the people, to the priests, and to the Levites. Hilkiah, Zechariah, and Jehiel, the chief officers of the house of God, gave to the priests for the passover offerings two thousand six hundred lambs and kids and three hundred bulls.

⁹Conaniah also, and his brothers Shemaiah and Nethanel, and Hashabiah and Jeiel and Jozabad, the chiefs of the Levites, gave to the Levites for the passover offerings five thousand lambs and kids and five hundred bulls.

¹⁰When the service had been prepared for, the priests stood in their place, and the Levites in their divisions according to the king’s command.

¹¹They slaughtered the passover lamb, and the priests dashed the blood that they received from them, while the Levites did the skinning.

¹²They set aside the burnt offerings so that they might distribute them according to the groupings of the ancestral houses of the people, to offer to the LORD, as it is written in the book of Moses. And they did the same with the bulls.

¹³They roasted the passover lamb with fire according to the ordinance; and they boiled the holy offerings in pots, in caldrons, and in pans, and carried them quickly to all the people.

¹⁴Afterward they made preparations for themselves and for the priests, because the priests the descendants of Aaron were occupied in offering the burnt offerings and the fat parts until night; so the Levites made preparations for themselves and for the priests, the descendants of Aaron.

¹⁵The singers, the descendants of Asaph, were in their place according to the command of David, and Asaph, and Heman, and the king’s seer Jeduthun. The gatekeepers were at each gate; they did not need to interrupt their service, for their kindred the Levites made preparations for them.

¹⁶So all the service of the LORD was prepared that day, to keep the passover and to offer burnt offerings on the altar of the LORD, according to the command of King Josiah.

¹⁷The people of Israel who were present kept the passover at that time, and the festival of unleavened bread seven days.

¹⁸No passover like it had been kept in Israel since the days of the prophet Samuel; none of the kings of Israel had kept such a passover as was kept by Josiah, by the priests and the Levites, by all Judah and Israel who were present, and by the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

¹⁹In the eighteenth year of the reign of Josiah this passover was kept.

²⁰After all this, when Josiah had set the temple in order, King Neco of Egypt went up to fight at Carchemish on the Euphrates, and Josiah went out against him.

²¹But Neco sent envoys to him, saying, “What have I to do with you, king of Judah? I am not coming against you today, but against the house with which I am at war; and God has commanded me to hurry. Cease opposing God, who is with me, so that he will not destroy you.”

²²But Josiah would not turn away from him, but disguised himself in order to fight with him. He did not listen to the words of Neco from the mouth of God, but joined battle in the plain of Megiddo.

²³The archers shot King Josiah; and the king said to his servants, “Take me away, for I am badly wounded.”

²⁴So his servants took him out of the chariot and carried him in his second chariot and brought him to Jerusalem. There he died, and was buried in the tombs of his ancestors. All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah.

²⁵Jeremiah also uttered a lament for Josiah, and all the singing men and singing women have spoken of Josiah in their laments to this day. They made these a custom in Israel; they are recorded in the Laments.

²⁶Now the rest of the acts of Josiah and his faithful deeds in accordance with what is written in the law of the LORD,

²⁷and his acts, first and last, are written in the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah.

¹The word of the LORD that came to Micah of Moresheth in the days of Kings Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.

²Hear, you peoples, all of you; listen, O earth, and all that is in it; and let the Lord GOD be a witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple.

³For lo, the LORD is coming out of his place, and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth.

⁴Then the mountains will melt under him and the valleys will burst open, like wax near the fire, like waters poured down a steep place.

⁵All this is for the transgression of Jacob and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what is the high place of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem?

⁶Therefore I will make Samaria a heap in the open country, a place for planting vineyards. I will pour down her stones into the valley, and uncover her foundations.

⁷All her images shall be beaten to pieces, all her wages shall be burned with fire, and all her idols I will lay waste; for as the wages of a prostitute she gathered them, and as the wages of a prostitute they shall again be used.

⁸For this I will lament and wail; I will go barefoot and naked; I will make lamentation like the jackals, and mourning like the ostriches.

⁹For her wound is incurable. It has come to Judah; it has reached to the gate of my people, to Jerusalem.

¹⁰Tell it not in Gath, weep not at all; in Beth-leaphrah roll yourselves in the dust.

¹¹Pass on your way, inhabitants of Shaphir, in nakedness and shame; the inhabitants of Zaanan do not come forth; Beth-ezel is wailing and shall remove its support from you.

¹²For the inhabitants of Maroth wait anxiously for good, yet disaster has come down from the LORD to the gate of Jerusalem.

¹³Harness the steeds to the chariots, inhabitants of Lachish; it was the beginning of sin to daughter Zion, for in you were found the transgressions of Israel.

¹⁴Therefore you shall give parting gifts to Moresheth-gath; the houses of Achzib shall be a deception to the kings of Israel.

¹⁵I will again bring a conqueror upon you, inhabitants of Mareshah; the glory of Israel shall come to Adullam.

¹⁶Make yourselves bald and cut off your hair for your pampered children; make yourselves as bald as the eagle, for they have gone from you into exile.

¹While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul passed through the interior regions and came to Ephesus, where he found some disciples.

²He said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?” They replied, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”

³Then he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” They answered, “Into John’s baptism.”

⁴Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus.”

⁵On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

⁶When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied —

⁷altogether there were about twelve of them.

⁸He entered the synagogue and for three months spoke out boldly, and argued persuasively about the kingdom of God.

⁹When some stubbornly refused to believe and spoke evil of the Way before the congregation, he left them, taking the disciples with him, and argued daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus.

¹⁰This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia, both Jews and Greeks, heard the word of the Lord.

¹¹God did extraordinary miracles through Paul,

¹²so that when the handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were brought to the sick, their diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them.

¹³Then some itinerant Jewish exorcists tried to use the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.”

¹⁴Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this.

¹⁵But the evil spirit said to them in reply, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?”

¹⁶Then the man with the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered them all, and so overpowered them that they fled out of the house naked and wounded.

¹⁷When this became known to all residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks, everyone was awestruck; and the name of the Lord Jesus was praised.

¹⁸Also many of those who became believers confessed and disclosed their practices.

¹⁹A number of those who practiced magic collected their books and burned them publicly; when the value of these books was calculated, it was found to come to fifty thousand silver coins.

²⁰So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed.

²¹Now after these things had been accomplished, Paul resolved in the Spirit to go through Macedonia and Achaia, and then to go on to Jerusalem. He said, “After I have gone there, I must also see Rome.”

²²So he sent two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, to Macedonia, while he himself stayed for some time longer in Asia.

²³About that time no little disturbance broke out concerning the Way.

²⁴A man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the artisans.

²⁵These he gathered together, with the workers of the same trade, and said, “Men, you know that we get our wealth from this business.

²⁶You also see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost the whole of Asia this Paul has persuaded and drawn away a considerable number of people by saying that gods made with hands are not gods.

²⁷And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be scorned, and she will be deprived of her majesty that brought all Asia and the world to worship her.”

²⁸When they heard this, they were enraged and shouted, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”

²⁹The city was filled with the confusion; and people rushed together to the theater, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians who were Paul’s travel companions.

³⁰Paul wished to go into the crowd, but the disciples would not let him;

³¹even some officials of the province of Asia, who were friendly to him, sent him a message urging him not to venture into the theater.

³²Meanwhile, some were shouting one thing, some another; for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together.

³³Some of the crowd gave instructions to Alexander, whom the Jews had pushed forward. And Alexander motioned for silence and tried to make a defense before the people.

³⁴But when they recognized that he was a Jew, for about two hours all of them shouted in unison, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”

³⁵But when the town clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, “Citizens of Ephesus, who is there that does not know that the city of the Ephesians is the temple keeper of the great Artemis and of the statue that fell from heaven?

³⁶Since these things cannot be denied, you ought to be quiet and do nothing rash.

³⁷You have brought these men here who are neither temple robbers nor blasphemers of our goddess.

³⁸If therefore Demetrius and the artisans with him have a complaint against anyone, the courts are open, and there are proconsuls; let them bring charges there against one another.

³⁹If there is anything further you want to know, it must be settled in the regular assembly.

⁴⁰For we are in danger of being charged with rioting today, since there is no cause that we can give to justify this commotion.”

⁴¹When he had said this, he dismissed the assembly.