Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹As he was going out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Teacher, look! What massive stones! What impressive buildings!”

²Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left upon another — all will be thrown down.”

³While he was sitting on the Mount of Olives across from the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately,

⁴“Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign when all these things are about to be accomplished?”

⁵Jesus told them, “Watch out that no one deceives you.

⁶Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and they will deceive many.

⁷When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, don’t be alarmed; these things must take place, but it is not yet the end.

⁸For nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains.

⁹“But you, be on your guard! They will hand you over to local courts, and you will be flogged in the synagogues. You will stand before governors and kings because of me, as a witness to them.

¹⁰And it is necessary that the gospel be preached to all nations.

¹¹So when they arrest you and hand you over, don’t worry beforehand what you will say, but say whatever is given to you at that time, for it isn’t you speaking, but the Holy Spirit.

¹²“Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child. Children will rise up against parents and have them put to death.

¹³You will be hated by everyone because of my name, but the one who endures to the end will be saved.

¹⁴“When you see the abomination of desolation standing where it should not be” (let the reader understand), “then those in Judea must flee to the mountains.

¹⁵A man on the housetop must not come down or go in to get anything out of his house,

¹⁶and a man in the field must not go back to get his coat.

¹⁷Woe to pregnant women and nursing mothers in those days!

¹⁸“Pray it won’t happen in winter.

¹⁹For those will be days of tribulation, the kind that hasn’t been from the beginning of creation until now and never will be again.

²⁰If the Lord had not cut those days short, no one would be saved. But he cut those days short for the sake of the elect, whom he chose.

²¹“Then if anyone tells you, ‘See, here is the Messiah! See, there! ’ do not believe it.

²²For false messiahs and false prophets will arise and will perform signs and wonders to lead astray, if possible, the elect.

²³And you must watch! I have told you everything in advance.

²⁴“But in those days, after that tribulation: The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not shed its light;

²⁵the stars will be falling from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

²⁶Then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.

²⁷He will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.

²⁸“Learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves, you know that summer is near.

²⁹In the same way, when you see these things happening, recognize that he is near — at the door.

³⁰“Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things take place.

³¹Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

³²“Now concerning that day or hour no one knows — neither the angels in heaven nor the Son  — but only the Father.

³³“Watch! Be alert! For you don’t know when the time is coming.

³⁴“It is like a man on a journey, who left his house, gave authority to his servants, gave each one his work, and commanded the doorkeeper to be alert.

³⁵Therefore be alert, since you don’t know when the master of the house is coming — whether in the evening or at midnight or at the crowing of the rooster or early in the morning.

³⁶Otherwise, when he comes suddenly he might find you sleeping.

³⁷And what I say to you, I say to everyone: Be alert!”

¹Jacob went on his way, and God’s angels met him.

²When he saw them, Jacob said, “This is God’s camp.” So he called that place Mahanaim.

³Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the territory of Edom.

⁴He commanded them, “You are to say to my lord Esau, ‘This is what your servant Jacob says. I have been staying with Laban and have been delayed until now.

⁵I have oxen, donkeys, flocks, and male and female slaves. I have sent this message to inform my lord, in order to seek your favor.’”

⁶When the messengers returned to Jacob, they said, “We went to your brother Esau; he is coming to meet you — and he has four hundred men with him.”

⁷Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed; he divided the people with him into two camps, along with the flocks, herds, and camels.

⁸He thought, “If Esau comes to one camp and attacks it, the remaining one can escape.”

⁹Then Jacob said, “God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, the LORD who said to me, ‘Go back to your land and to your family, and I will cause you to prosper,’

¹⁰I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. Indeed, I crossed over the Jordan with my staff, and now I have become two camps.

¹¹Please rescue me from my brother Esau, for I am afraid of him; otherwise, he may come and attack me, the mothers, and their children.

¹²You have said, ‘I will cause you to prosper, and I will make your offspring like the sand of the sea, too numerous to be counted.’”

¹³He spent the night there and took part of what he had brought with him as a gift for his brother Esau:

¹⁴two hundred female goats, twenty male goats, two hundred ewes, twenty rams,

¹⁵thirty milk camels with their young, forty cows, ten bulls, twenty female donkeys, and ten male donkeys.

¹⁶He entrusted them to his slaves as separate herds and said to them, “Go on ahead of me, and leave some distance between the herds.”

¹⁷And he told the first one: “When my brother Esau meets you and asks, ‘Who do you belong to? Where are you going? And whose animals are these ahead of you?’

¹⁸then tell him, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a gift sent to my lord Esau. And look, he is behind us.’”

¹⁹He also told the second one, the third, and everyone who was walking behind the animals, “Say the same thing to Esau when you find him.

²⁰You are also to say, ‘Look, your servant Jacob is right behind us.’” For he thought, “I want to appease Esau with the gift that is going ahead of me. After that, I can face him, and perhaps he will forgive me.”

²¹So the gift was sent on ahead of him while he remained in the camp that night.

²²During the night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two slave women, and his eleven sons, and crossed the ford of Jabbok.

²³He took them and sent them across the stream, along with all his possessions.

²⁴Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.

²⁵When the man saw that he could not defeat him, he struck Jacob’s hip socket as they wrestled and dislocated his hip.

²⁶Then he said to Jacob, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

²⁷“What is your name?” the man asked. “Jacob,” he replied.

²⁸“Your name will no longer be Jacob,” he said. “It will be Israel because you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed.”

²⁹Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he answered, “Why do you ask my name?” And he blessed him there.

³⁰Jacob then named the place Peniel, “For I have seen God face to face,” he said, “yet my life has been spared.”

³¹The sun shone on him as he passed by Penuel  — limping because of his hip.

³²That is why, still today, the Israelites don’t eat the thigh muscle that is at the hip socket: because he struck Jacob’s hip socket at the thigh muscle.

¹For I want you to know how greatly I am struggling for you, for those in Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me in person.

²I want their hearts to be encouraged and joined together in love, so that they may have all the riches of complete understanding and have the knowledge of God’s mystery  — Christ.

³In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

⁴I am saying this so that no one will deceive you with arguments that sound reasonable.

⁵For I may be absent in body, but I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see how well ordered you are and the strength of your faith in Christ.

⁶So then, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him,

⁷being rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, and overflowing with gratitude.

⁸Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elements of the world, rather than Christ.

⁹For the entire fullness of God’s nature dwells bodily in Christ,

¹⁰and you have been filled by him, who is the head over every ruler and authority.

¹¹You were also circumcised in him with a circumcision not done with hands, by putting off the body of flesh, in the circumcision of Christ,

¹²when you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

¹³And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses.

¹⁴He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross.

¹⁵He disarmed the rulers and authorities and disgraced them publicly; he triumphed over them in him.

¹⁶Therefore, don’t let anyone judge you in regard to food and drink or in the matter of a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day.

¹⁷These are a shadow of what was to come; the substance is Christ.

¹⁸Let no one condemn you by delighting in ascetic practices and the worship of angels, claiming access to a visionary realm. Such people are inflated by empty notions of their unspiritual mind.

¹⁹He doesn’t hold on to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and tendons, grows with growth from God.

²⁰If you died with Christ to the elements of this world, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations:

²¹“Don’t handle, don’t taste, don’t touch”?

²²All these regulations refer to what is destined to perish by being used up; they are human commands and doctrines.

²³Although these have a reputation for wisdom by promoting self-made religion, false humility, and severe treatment of the body, they are not of any value in curbing self-indulgence.

¹My brothers and sisters, do not show favoritism as you hold on to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.

²For if someone comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and a poor person dressed in filthy clothes also comes in,

³if you look with favor on the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Sit here in a good place,” and yet you say to the poor person, “Stand over there,” or “Sit here on the floor by my footstool,”

⁴haven’t you made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

⁵Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Didn’t God choose the poor in this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?

⁶Yet you have dishonored the poor. Don’t the rich oppress you and drag you into court?

⁷Don’t they blaspheme the good name that was invoked over you?

⁸Indeed, if you fulfill the royal law prescribed in the Scripture, Love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well.

⁹If, however, you show favoritism, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

¹⁰For whoever keeps the entire law, and yet stumbles at one point, is guilty of breaking it all.

¹¹For he who said, Do not commit adultery, also said, Do not murder. So if you do not commit adultery, but you murder, you are a lawbreaker.

¹²Speak and act as those who are to be judged by the law of freedom.

¹³For judgment is without mercy to the one who has not shown mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

¹⁴What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Can such faith save him?

¹⁵If a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food

¹⁶and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, stay warm, and be well fed,” but you don’t give them what the body needs, what good is it?

¹⁷In the same way faith, if it doesn’t have works, is dead by itself.

¹⁸But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without works, and I will show you faith by my works.

¹⁹You believe that God is one. Good! Even the demons believe — and they shudder.

²⁰Senseless person! Are you willing to learn that faith without works is useless?

²¹Wasn’t Abraham our father justified by works in offering Isaac his son on the altar?

²²You see that faith was active together with his works, and by works, faith was made complete,

²³and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, and he was called God’s friend.

²⁴You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

²⁵In the same way, wasn’t Rahab the prostitute also justified by works in receiving the messengers and sending them out by a different route?

²⁶For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.

¹But now, Job, pay attention to my speech, and listen to all my words.

²I am going to open my mouth; my tongue will form words on my palate.

³My words come from my upright heart, and my lips speak with sincerity what they know.

⁴The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

⁵Refute me if you can. Prepare your case against me; take your stand.

⁶I am just like you before God; I was also pinched off from a piece of clay.

⁷Fear of me should not terrify you; no pressure from me should weigh you down.

⁸Surely you have spoken in my hearing, and I have heard these very words:

⁹“I am pure, without transgression; I am clean and have no iniquity.

¹⁰But he finds reasons to oppose me; he regards me as his enemy.

¹¹He puts my feet in the stocks; he stands watch over all my paths.”

¹²But I tell you that you are wrong in this matter, since God is greater than man.

¹³Why do you take him to court for not answering anything a person asks?

¹⁴For God speaks time and again, but a person may not notice it.

¹⁵In a dream, a vision in the night, when deep sleep comes over people as they slumber on their beds,

¹⁶he uncovers their ears and terrifies them with warnings,

¹⁷in order to turn a person from his actions and suppress the pride of a person.

¹⁸God spares his soul from the Pit, his life from crossing the river of death.

¹⁹A person may be disciplined on his bed with pain and constant distress in his bones,

²⁰so that he detests bread, and his soul despises his favorite food.

²¹His flesh wastes away to nothing, and his unseen bones stick out.

²²He draws near to the Pit, and his life to the executioners.

²³If there is an angel on his side, one mediator out of a thousand, to tell a person what is right for him

²⁴and to be gracious to him and say, “Spare him from going down to the Pit; I have found a ransom,”

²⁵then his flesh will be healthier than in his youth, and he will return to the days of his youthful vigor.

²⁶He will pray to God, and God will delight in him. That person will see his face with a shout of joy, and God will restore his righteousness to him.

²⁷He will look at men and say, “I have sinned and perverted what was right; yet I did not get what I deserved.

²⁸He redeemed my soul from going down to the Pit, and I will continue to see the light.”

²⁹God certainly does all these things two or three times to a person

³⁰in order to turn him back from the Pit, so he may shine with the light of life.

³¹Pay attention, Job, and listen to me. Be quiet, and I will speak.

³²But if you have something to say, answer me; speak, for I would like to justify you.

³³If not, then listen to me; be quiet, and I will teach you wisdom.

¹For the choir director: according to “The Lilies.” Of David. [1] Save me, God, for the water has risen to my neck.

²I have sunk in deep mud, and there is no footing; I have come into deep water, and a flood sweeps over me.

³I am weary from my crying; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God.

⁴Those who hate me without cause are more numerous than the hairs of my head; my deceitful enemies, who would destroy me, are powerful. Though I did not steal, I must repay.

⁵God, you know my foolishness, and my guilty acts are not hidden from you.

⁶Do not let those who put their hope in you be disgraced because of me, Lord GOD of Armies; do not let those who seek you be humiliated because of me, God of Israel.

⁷For I have endured insults because of you, and shame has covered my face.

⁸I have become a stranger to my brothers and a foreigner to my mother’s sons

⁹because zeal for your house has consumed me, and the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.

¹⁰I mourned and fasted, but it brought me insults.

¹¹I wore sackcloth as my clothing, and I was a joke to them.

¹²Those who sit at the city gate talk about me, and drunkards make up songs about me.

¹³But as for me, LORD, my prayer to you is for a time of favor. In your abundant, faithful love, God, answer me with your sure salvation.

¹⁴Rescue me from the miry mud; don’t let me sink. Let me be rescued from those who hate me and from the deep water.

¹⁵Don’t let the floodwaters sweep over me or the deep swallow me up; don’t let the Pit close its mouth over me.

¹⁶Answer me, LORD, for your faithful love is good. In keeping with your abundant compassion, turn to me.

¹⁷Don’t hide your face from your servant, for I am in distress. Answer me quickly!

¹⁸Come near to me and redeem me; ransom me because of my enemies.

¹⁹You know the insults I endure — my shame and disgrace. You are aware of all my adversaries.

²⁰Insults have broken my heart, and I am in despair. I waited for sympathy, but there was none; for comforters, but found no one.

²¹Instead, they gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

²²Let their table set before them be a snare, and let it be a trap for their allies.

²³Let their eyes grow too dim to see, and let their hips continually quake.

²⁴Pour out your rage on them, and let your burning anger overtake them.

²⁵Make their fortification desolate; may no one live in their tents.

²⁶For they persecute the one you struck and talk about the pain of those you wounded.

²⁷Charge them with crime on top of crime; do not let them share in your righteousness.

²⁸Let them be erased from the book of life and not be recorded with the righteous.

²⁹But as for me — poor and in pain — let your salvation protect me, God.

³⁰I will praise God’s name with song and exalt him with thanksgiving.

³¹That will please the LORD more than an ox, more than a bull with horns and hooves.

³²The humble will see it and rejoice. You who seek God, take heart!

³³For the LORD listens to the needy and does not despise his own who are prisoners.

³⁴Let heaven and earth praise him, the seas and everything that moves in them,

³⁵for God will save Zion and build up the cities of Judah. They will live there and possess it.

³⁶The descendants of his servants will inherit it, and those who love his name will live in it.

¹My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you,

²listening closely to wisdom and directing your heart to understanding;

³furthermore, if you call out to insight and lift your voice to understanding,

⁴if you seek it like silver and search for it like hidden treasure,

⁵then you will understand the fear of the LORD and discover the knowledge of God.

⁶For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.

⁷He stores up success for the upright; He is a shield for those who live with integrity

⁸so that he may guard the paths of justice and protect the way of his faithful followers.

⁹Then you will understand righteousness, justice, and integrity — every good path.

¹⁰For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will delight you.

¹¹Discretion will watch over you, and understanding will guard you.

¹²It will rescue you from the way of evil — from anyone who says perverse things,

¹³from those who abandon the right paths to walk in ways of darkness,

¹⁴from those who enjoy doing evil and celebrate perversion,

¹⁵whose paths are crooked, and whose ways are devious.

¹⁶It will rescue you from a forbidden woman, from a wayward woman with her flattering talk,

¹⁷who abandons the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God;

¹⁸for her house sinks down to death and her ways to the land of the departed spirits.

¹⁹None return who go to her; none reach the paths of life.

²⁰So follow the way of the good, and keep to the paths of the righteous.

²¹For the upright will inhabit the land, and those of integrity will remain in it;

²²but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous ripped out of it.

¹When the seventh month arrived, and the Israelites were in their towns, the people gathered as one in Jerusalem.

²Jeshua son of Jozadak and his brothers the priests along with Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and his brothers began to build the altar of Israel’s God in order to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the law of Moses, the man of God.

³They set up the altar on its foundation and offered burnt offerings for the morning and evening on it to the LORD even though they feared the surrounding peoples.

⁴They celebrated the Festival of Shelters as prescribed, and offered burnt offerings each day, based on the number specified by ordinance for each festival day.

⁵After that, they offered the regular burnt offering and the offerings for the beginning of each month and for all the LORD’s appointed holy occasions, as well as the freewill offerings brought to the LORD.

⁶On the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the LORD, even though the foundation of the LORD’s temple had not yet been laid.

⁷They gave money to the stonecutters and artisans, and gave food, drink, and oil to the people of Sidon and Tyre, so they would bring cedar wood from Lebanon to Joppa by sea, according to the authorization given them by King Cyrus of Persia.

⁸In the second month of the second year after they arrived at God’s house in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, Jeshua son of Jozadak, and the rest of their brothers, including the priests, the Levites, and all who had returned to Jerusalem from the captivity, began to build. They appointed the Levites who were twenty years old or more to supervise the work on the LORD’s house.

⁹Jeshua with his sons and brothers, Kadmiel with his sons, and the sons of Judah and of Henadad, with their sons and brothers, the Levites, joined together to supervise those working on the house of God.

¹⁰When the builders had laid the foundation of the LORD’s temple, the priests, dressed in their robes and holding trumpets, and the Levites descended from Asaph, holding cymbals, took their positions to praise the LORD, as King David of Israel had instructed.

¹¹They sang with praise and thanksgiving to the LORD: “For he is good; his faithful love to Israel endures forever.” Then all the people gave a great shout of praise to the LORD because the foundation of the LORD’s house had been laid.

¹²But many of the older priests, Levites, and family heads, who had seen the first temple, wept loudly when they saw the foundation of this temple, but many others shouted joyfully.

¹³The people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shouting from that of the weeping, because the people were shouting so loudly. And the sound was heard far away.

¹Now, daughter who is under attack, you slash yourself in grief; a siege is set against us! They are striking the judge of Israel on the cheek with a rod.

²Bethlehem Ephrathah, you are small among the clans of Judah; one will come from you to be ruler over Israel for me. His origin is from antiquity, from ancient times.

³Therefore, Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor has given birth; then the rest of the ruler’s brothers will return to the people of Israel.

⁴He will stand and shepherd them in the strength of the LORD, in the majestic name of the LORD his God. They will live securely, for then his greatness will extend to the ends of the earth.

⁵He will be their peace. When Assyria invades our land, when it marches against our fortresses, we will raise against it seven shepherds, even eight leaders of men.

⁶They will shepherd the land of Assyria with the sword, the land of Nimrod with a drawn blade. So he will rescue us from Assyria when it invades our land, when it marches against our territory.

⁷Then the remnant of Jacob will be among many peoples like dew from the LORD, like showers on the grass, which do not wait for anyone or linger for mankind.

⁸Then the remnant of Jacob will be among the nations, among many peoples, like a lion among animals of the forest, like a young lion among flocks of sheep, which tramples and tears as it passes through, and there is no one to rescue them.

⁹Your hand will be lifted up against your adversaries, and all your enemies will be destroyed.

¹⁰In that day — this is the LORD’s declaration — I will remove your horses from you and wreck your chariots.

¹¹I will remove the cities of your land and tear down all your fortresses.

¹²I will remove sorceries from your hands, and you will not have any more fortune-tellers.

¹³I will remove your carved images and sacred pillars from you so that you will no longer worship the work of your hands.

¹⁴I will pull up the Asherah poles from among you and demolish your cities.

¹⁵I will take vengeance in anger and wrath against the nations that have not obeyed me.

¹Paul looked straight at the Sanhedrin and said, “Brothers, I have lived my life before God in all good conscience to this day.”

²The high priest Ananias ordered those who were standing next to him to strike him on the mouth.

³Then Paul said to him, “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! You are sitting there judging me according to the law, and yet in violation of the law are you ordering me to be struck?”

⁴Those standing nearby said, “Do you dare revile God’s high priest?”

⁵“I did not know, brothers, that he was the high priest,” replied Paul. “For it is written, You must not speak evil of a ruler of your people.”

⁶When Paul realized that one part of them were Sadducees and the other part were Pharisees, he cried out in the Sanhedrin, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. I am being judged because of the hope of the resurrection of the dead!”

⁷When he said this, a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided.

⁸For the Sadducees say there is no resurrection, and neither angel nor spirit, but the Pharisees affirm them all.

⁹The shouting grew loud, and some of the scribes of the Pharisees’ party got up and argued vehemently: “We find nothing evil in this man. What if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him?”

¹⁰When the dispute became violent, the commander feared that Paul might be torn apart by them and ordered the troops to go down, take him away from them, and bring him into the barracks.

¹¹The following night, the Lord stood by him and said, “Have courage! For as you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so it is necessary for you to testify in Rome.”

¹²When it was morning, the Jews formed a conspiracy and bound themselves under a curse not to eat or drink until they had killed Paul.

¹³There were more than forty who had formed this plot.

¹⁴These men went to the chief priests and elders and said, “We have bound ourselves under a solemn curse that we won’t eat anything until we have killed Paul.

¹⁵So now you, along with the Sanhedrin, make a request to the commander that he bring him down to you as if you were going to investigate his case more thoroughly. But, before he gets near, we are ready to kill him.”

¹⁶But the son of Paul’s sister, hearing about their ambush, came and entered the barracks and reported it to Paul.

¹⁷Paul called one of the centurions and said, “Take this young man to the commander, because he has something to report to him.”

¹⁸So he took him, brought him to the commander, and said, “The prisoner Paul called me and asked me to bring this young man to you, because he has something to tell you.”

¹⁹The commander took him by the hand, led him aside, and inquired privately, “What is it you have to report to me?”

²⁰“The Jews,” he said, “have agreed to ask you to bring Paul down to the Sanhedrin tomorrow, as though they are going to hold a somewhat more careful inquiry about him.

²¹Don’t let them persuade you, because there are more than forty of them lying in ambush — men who have bound themselves under a curse not to eat or drink until they have killed him. Now they are ready, waiting for your consent.”

²²So the commander dismissed the young man and instructed him, “Don’t tell anyone that you have informed me about this.”

²³He summoned two of his centurions and said, “Get two hundred soldiers ready with seventy cavalry and two hundred spearmen to go to Caesarea at nine tonight.

²⁴Also provide mounts for Paul to ride and bring him safely to Felix the governor.”

²⁵He wrote the following letter:

²⁶Claudius Lysias, To the most excellent governor Felix: Greetings.

²⁷When this man had been seized by the Jews and was about to be killed by them, I arrived with my troops and rescued him because I learned that he is a Roman citizen.

²⁸Wanting to know the charge they were accusing him of, I brought him down before their Sanhedrin.

²⁹I found out that the accusations were concerning questions of their law, and that there was no charge that merited death or imprisonment.

³⁰When I was informed that there was a plot against the man, I sent him to you right away. I also ordered his accusers to state their case against him in your presence.

³¹So the soldiers took Paul during the night and brought him to Antipatris as they were ordered.

³²The next day, they returned to the barracks, allowing the cavalry to go on with him.

³³When these men entered Caesarea and delivered the letter to the governor, they also presented Paul to him.

³⁴After he read it, he asked what province he was from. When he learned he was from Cilicia,

³⁵he said, “I will give you a hearing whenever your accusers also get here.” He ordered that he be kept under guard in Herod’s palace.