Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

²He was in the beginning with God.

³All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being

⁴in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.

⁵The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

⁶There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

⁷He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.

⁸He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.

⁹The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

¹⁰He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.

¹¹He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.

¹²But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God,

¹³who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

¹⁴And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

¹⁵(John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’”)

¹⁶From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.

¹⁷The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

¹⁸No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

¹⁹This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”

²⁰He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.”

²¹And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.”

²²Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”

²³He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’” as the prophet Isaiah said.

²⁴Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.

²⁵They asked him, “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?”

²⁶John answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know,

²⁷the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.”

²⁸This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing.

²⁹The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

³⁰This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’

³¹I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.”

³²And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him.

³³I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’

³⁴And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”

³⁵The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples,

³⁶and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!”

³⁷The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.

³⁸When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?”

³⁹He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon.

⁴⁰One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.

⁴¹He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed).

⁴²He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).

⁴³The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.”

⁴⁴Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.

⁴⁵Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.”

⁴⁶Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”

⁴⁷When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!”

⁴⁸Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.”

⁴⁹Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”

⁵⁰Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.”

⁵¹And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

¹Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh; for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his officials, in order that I may show these signs of mine among them,

²and that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I have made fools of the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them — so that you may know that I am the LORD.”

³So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh, and said to him, “Thus says the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, so that they may worship me.

⁴For if you refuse to let my people go, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your country.

⁵They shall cover the surface of the land, so that no one will be able to see the land. They shall devour the last remnant left you after the hail, and they shall devour every tree of yours that grows in the field.

⁶They shall fill your houses, and the houses of all your officials and of all the Egyptians — something that neither your parents nor your grandparents have seen, from the day they came on earth to this day.’” Then he turned and went out from Pharaoh.

⁷Pharaoh’s officials said to him, “How long shall this fellow be a snare to us? Let the people go, so that they may worship the LORD their God; do you not yet understand that Egypt is ruined?”

⁸So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh, and he said to them, “Go, worship the LORD your God! But which ones are to go?”

⁹Moses said, “We will go with our young and our old; we will go with our sons and daughters and with our flocks and herds, because we have the LORD’s festival to celebrate.”

¹⁰He said to them, “The LORD indeed will be with you, if ever I let your little ones go with you! Plainly, you have some evil purpose in mind.

¹¹No, never! Your men may go and worship the LORD, for that is what you are asking.” And they were driven out from Pharaoh’s presence.

¹²Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt, so that the locusts may come upon it and eat every plant in the land, all that the hail has left.”

¹³So Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt, and the LORD brought an east wind upon the land all that day and all that night; when morning came, the east wind had brought the locusts.

¹⁴The locusts came upon all the land of Egypt and settled on the whole country of Egypt, such a dense swarm of locusts as had never been before, nor ever shall be again.

¹⁵They covered the surface of the whole land, so that the land was black; and they ate all the plants in the land and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left; nothing green was left, no tree, no plant in the field, in all the land of Egypt.

¹⁶Pharaoh hurriedly summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “I have sinned against the LORD your God, and against you.

¹⁷Do forgive my sin just this once, and pray to the LORD your God that at the least he remove this deadly thing from me.”

¹⁸So he went out from Pharaoh and prayed to the LORD.

¹⁹The LORD changed the wind into a very strong west wind, which lifted the locusts and drove them into the Red Sea; not a single locust was left in all the country of Egypt.

²⁰But the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go.

²¹Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward heaven so that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, a darkness that can be felt.”

²²So Moses stretched out his hand toward heaven, and there was dense darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days.

²³People could not see one another, and for three days they could not move from where they were; but all the Israelites had light where they lived.

²⁴Then Pharaoh summoned Moses, and said, “Go, worship the LORD. Only your flocks and your herds shall remain behind. Even your children may go with you.”

²⁵But Moses said, “You must also let us have sacrifices and burnt offerings to sacrifice to the LORD our God.

²⁶Our livestock also must go with us; not a hoof shall be left behind, for we must choose some of them for the worship of the LORD our God, and we will not know what to use to worship the LORD until we arrive there.”

²⁷But the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he was unwilling to let them go.

²⁸Then Pharaoh said to him, “Get away from me! Take care that you do not see my face again, for on the day you see my face you shall die.”

²⁹Moses said, “Just as you say! I will never see your face again.”

¹Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God.

²Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.

³For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval;

⁴for it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer.

⁵Therefore one must be subject, not only because of wrath but also because of conscience.

⁶For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, busy with this very thing.

⁷Pay to all what is due them — taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due.

⁸Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

⁹The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

¹⁰Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

¹¹Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers;

¹²the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light;

¹³let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy.

¹⁴Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

¹And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit;

²he opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft.

³Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given authority like the authority of scorpions of the earth.

⁴They were told not to damage the grass of the earth or any green growth or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.

⁵They were allowed to torture them for five months, but not to kill them, and their torture was like the torture of a scorpion when it stings someone.

⁶And in those days people will seek death but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will flee from them.

⁷In appearance the locusts were like horses equipped for battle. On their heads were what looked like crowns of gold; their faces were like human faces,

⁸their hair like women’s hair, and their teeth like lions’ teeth;

⁹they had scales like iron breastplates, and the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots with horses rushing into battle.

¹⁰They have tails like scorpions, with stingers, and in their tails is their power to harm people for five months.

¹¹They have as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he is called Apollyon.

¹²The first woe has passed. There are still two woes to come.

¹³Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God,

¹⁴saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.”

¹⁵So the four angels were released, who had been held ready for the hour, the day, the month, and the year, to kill a third of humankind.

¹⁶The number of the troops of cavalry was two hundred million; I heard their number.

¹⁷And this was how I saw the horses in my vision: the riders wore breastplates the color of fire and of sapphire and of sulfur; the heads of the horses were like lions’ heads, and fire and smoke and sulfur came out of their mouths.

¹⁸By these three plagues a third of humankind was killed, by the fire and smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths.

¹⁹For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails; their tails are like serpents, having heads; and with them they inflict harm.

²⁰The rest of humankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands or give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk.

²¹And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their fornication or their thefts.

¹How graceful are your feet in sandals, O queenly maiden! Your rounded thighs are like jewels, the work of a master hand.

²Your navel is a rounded bowl that never lacks mixed wine. Your belly is a heap of wheat, encircled with lilies.

³Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle.

⁴Your neck is like an ivory tower. Your eyes are pools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim. Your nose is like a tower of Lebanon, overlooking Damascus.

⁵Your head crowns you like Carmel, and your flowing locks are like purple; a king is held captive in the tresses.

⁶How fair and pleasant you are, O loved one, delectable maiden!

⁷You are stately as a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters.

⁸I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its branches. O may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, and the scent of your breath like apples,

⁹and your kisses like the best wine that goes down smoothly, gliding over lips and teeth.

¹⁰I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me.

¹¹Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the fields, and lodge in the villages;

¹²let us go out early to the vineyards, and see whether the vines have budded, whether the grape blossoms have opened and the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love.

¹³The mandrakes give forth fragrance, and over our doors are all choice fruits, new as well as old, which I have laid up for you, O my beloved.

¹The LORD is king! Let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad!

²Clouds and thick darkness are all around him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.

³Fire goes before him, and consumes his adversaries on every side.

⁴His lightnings light up the world; the earth sees and trembles.

⁵The mountains melt like wax before the LORD, before the Lord of all the earth.

⁶The heavens proclaim his righteousness; and all the peoples behold his glory.

⁷All worshipers of images are put to shame, those who make their boast in worthless idols; all gods bow down before him.

⁸Zion hears and is glad, and the towns of Judah rejoice, because of your judgments, O God.

⁹For you, O LORD, are most high over all the earth; you are exalted far above all gods.

¹⁰The LORD loves those who hate evil; he guards the lives of his faithful; he rescues them from the hand of the wicked.

¹¹Light dawns for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart.

¹²Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous, and give thanks to his holy name!

¹The words of Agur son of Jakeh. An oracle. Thus says the man: I am weary, O God, I am weary, O God. How can I prevail?

²Surely I am too stupid to be human; I do not have human understanding.

³I have not learned wisdom, nor have I knowledge of the holy ones.

⁴Who has ascended to heaven and come down? Who has gathered the wind in the hollow of the hand? Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is the person’s name? And what is the name of the person’s child? Surely you know!

⁵Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.

⁶Do not add to his words, or else he will rebuke you, and you will be found a liar.

⁷Two things I ask of you; do not deny them to me before I die:

⁸Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that I need,

⁹or I shall be full, and deny you, and say, “Who is the LORD?” or I shall be poor, and steal, and profane the name of my God.

¹⁰Do not slander a servant to a master, or the servant will curse you, and you will be held guilty.

¹¹There are those who curse their fathers and do not bless their mothers.

¹²There are those who are pure in their own eyes yet are not cleansed of their filthiness.

¹³There are those — how lofty are their eyes, how high their eyelids lift! —

¹⁴there are those whose teeth are swords, whose teeth are knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, the needy from among mortals.

¹⁵The leech has two daughters; “Give, give,” they cry. Three things are never satisfied; four never say, “Enough”:

¹⁶Sheol, the barren womb, the earth ever thirsty for water, and the fire that never says, “Enough.”

¹⁷The eye that mocks a father and scorns to obey a mother will be pecked out by the ravens of the valley and eaten by the vultures.

¹⁸Three things are too wonderful for me; four I do not understand:

¹⁹the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a snake on a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas, and the way of a man with a girl.

²⁰This is the way of an adulteress: she eats, and wipes her mouth, and says, “I have done no wrong.”

²¹Under three things the earth trembles; under four it cannot bear up:

²²a slave when he becomes king, and a fool when glutted with food;

²³an unloved woman when she gets a husband, and a maid when she succeeds her mistress.

²⁴Four things on earth are small, yet they are exceedingly wise:

²⁵the ants are a people without strength, yet they provide their food in the summer;

²⁶the badgers are a people without power, yet they make their homes in the rocks;

²⁷the locusts have no king, yet all of them march in rank;

²⁸the lizard can be grasped in the hand, yet it is found in kings’ palaces.

²⁹Three things are stately in their stride; four are stately in their gait:

³⁰the lion, which is mightiest among wild animals and does not turn back before any;

³¹the strutting rooster, the he-goat, and a king striding before his people.

³²If you have been foolish, exalting yourself, or if you have been devising evil, put your hand on your mouth.

³³For as pressing milk produces curds, and pressing the nose produces blood, so pressing anger produces strife.

¹On that day King Ahasuerus gave to Queen Esther the house of Haman, the enemy of the Jews; and Mordecai came before the king, for Esther had told what he was to her.

²Then the king took off his signet ring, which he had taken from Haman, and gave it to Mordecai. So Esther set Mordecai over the house of Haman.

³Then Esther spoke again to the king; she fell at his feet, weeping and pleading with him to avert the evil design of Haman the Agagite and the plot that he had devised against the Jews.

⁴The king held out the golden scepter to Esther,

⁵and Esther rose and stood before the king. She said, “If it pleases the king, and if I have won his favor, and if the thing seems right before the king, and I have his approval, let an order be written to revoke the letters devised by Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, which he wrote giving orders to destroy the Jews who are in all the provinces of the king.

⁶For how can I bear to see the calamity that is coming on my people? Or how can I bear to see the destruction of my kindred?”

⁷Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther and to the Jew Mordecai, “See, I have given Esther the house of Haman, and they have hanged him on the gallows, because he plotted to lay hands on the Jews.

⁸You may write as you please with regard to the Jews, in the name of the king, and seal it with the king’s ring; for an edict written in the name of the king and sealed with the king’s ring cannot be revoked.”

⁹The king’s secretaries were summoned at that time, in the third month, which is the month of Sivan, on the twenty-third day; and an edict was written, according to all that Mordecai commanded, to the Jews and to the satraps and the governors and the officials of the provinces from India to Ethiopia, one hundred twenty-seven provinces, to every province in its own script and to every people in its own language, and also to the Jews in their script and their language.

¹⁰He wrote letters in the name of King Ahasuerus, sealed them with the king’s ring, and sent them by mounted couriers riding on fast steeds bred from the royal herd.

¹¹By these letters the king allowed the Jews who were in every city to assemble and defend their lives, to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate any armed force of any people or province that might attack them, with their children and women, and to plunder their goods

¹²on a single day throughout all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar.

¹³A copy of the writ was to be issued as a decree in every province and published to all peoples, and the Jews were to be ready on that day to take revenge on their enemies.

¹⁴So the couriers, mounted on their swift royal steeds, hurried out, urged by the king’s command. The decree was issued in the citadel of Susa.

¹⁵Then Mordecai went out from the presence of the king, wearing royal robes of blue and white, with a great golden crown and a mantle of fine linen and purple, while the city of Susa shouted and rejoiced.

¹⁶For the Jews there was light and gladness, joy and honor.

¹⁷In every province and in every city, wherever the king’s command and his edict came, there was gladness and joy among the Jews, a festival and a holiday. Furthermore, many of the peoples of the country professed to be Jews, because the fear of the Jews had fallen upon them.

¹An oracle. The word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi.

²I have loved you, says the LORD. But you say, “How have you loved us?” Is not Esau Jacob’s brother? says the LORD. Yet I have loved Jacob

³but I have hated Esau; I have made his hill country a desolation and his heritage a desert for jackals.

⁴If Edom says, “We are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins,” the LORD of hosts says: They may build, but I will tear down, until they are called the wicked country, the people with whom the LORD is angry forever.

⁵Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, “Great is the LORD beyond the borders of Israel!”

⁶A son honors his father, and servants their master. If then I am a father, where is the honor due me? And if I am a master, where is the respect due me? says the LORD of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. You say, “How have we despised your name?”

⁷By offering polluted food on my altar. And you say, “How have we polluted it?” By thinking that the LORD’s table may be despised.

⁸When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not wrong? And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not wrong? Try presenting that to your governor; will he be pleased with you or show you favor? says the LORD of hosts.

⁹And now implore the favor of God, that he may be gracious to us. The fault is yours. Will he show favor to any of you? says the LORD of hosts.

¹⁰Oh, that someone among you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not kindle fire on my altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, says the LORD of hosts, and I will not accept an offering from your hands.

¹¹For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering; for my name is great among the nations, says the LORD of hosts.

¹²But you profane it when you say that the Lord’s table is polluted, and the food for it may be despised.

¹³“What a weariness this is,” you say, and you sniff at me, says the LORD of hosts. You bring what has been taken by violence or is lame or sick, and this you bring as your offering! Shall I accept that from your hand? says the LORD.

¹⁴Cursed be the cheat who has a male in the flock and vows to give it, and yet sacrifices to the Lord what is blemished; for I am a great King, says the LORD of hosts, and my name is reverenced among the nations.

¹While Paul was looking intently at the council he said, “Brothers, up to this day I have lived my life with a clear conscience before God.”

²Then the high priest Ananias ordered those standing near him to strike him on the mouth.

³At this Paul said to him, “God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! Are you sitting there to judge me according to the law, and yet in violation of the law you order me to be struck?”

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

⁵And Paul said, “I did not realize, brothers, that he was high priest; for it is written, ‘You shall not speak evil of a leader of your people.’”

⁶When Paul noticed that some were Sadducees and others were Pharisees, he called out in the council, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. I am on trial concerning the hope of the resurrection of the dead.”

⁷When he said this, a dissension began between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided.

⁸(The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, or angel, or spirit; but the Pharisees acknowledge all three.)

⁹Then a great clamor arose, and certain scribes of the Pharisees’ group stood up and contended, “We find nothing wrong with this man. What if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him?”

¹⁰When the dissension became violent, the tribune, fearing that they would tear Paul to pieces, ordered the soldiers to go down, take him by force, and bring him into the barracks.

¹¹That night the Lord stood near him and said, “Keep up your courage! For just as you have testified for me in Jerusalem, so you must bear witness also in Rome.”

¹²In the morning the Jews joined in a conspiracy and bound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink until they had killed Paul.

¹³There were more than forty who joined in this conspiracy.

¹⁴They went to the chief priests and elders and said, “We have strictly bound ourselves by an oath to taste no food until we have killed Paul.

¹⁵Now then, you and the council must notify the tribune to bring him down to you, on the pretext that you want to make a more thorough examination of his case. And we are ready to do away with him before he arrives.”

¹⁶Now the son of Paul’s sister heard about the ambush; so he went and gained entrance to the barracks and told Paul.

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

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

¹⁹The tribune took him by the hand, drew him aside privately, and asked, “What is it that you have to report to me?”

²⁰He answered, “The Jews have agreed to ask you to bring Paul down to the council tomorrow, as though they were going to inquire more thoroughly into his case.

²¹But do not be persuaded by them, for more than forty of their men are lying in ambush for him. They have bound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink until they kill him. They are ready now and are waiting for your consent.”

²²So the tribune dismissed the young man, ordering him, “Tell no one that you have informed me of this.”

²³Then he summoned two of the centurions and said, “Get ready to leave by nine o’clock tonight for Caesarea with two hundred soldiers, seventy horsemen, and two hundred spearmen.

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

²⁵He wrote a letter to this effect:

²⁶“Claudius Lysias to his Excellency the governor Felix, greetings.

²⁷This man was seized by the Jews and was about to be killed by them, but when I had learned that he was a Roman citizen, I came with the guard and rescued him.

²⁸Since I wanted to know the charge for which they accused him, I had him brought to their council.

²⁹I found that he was accused concerning questions of their law, but was charged with nothing deserving death or imprisonment.

³⁰When I was informed that there would be a plot against the man, I sent him to you at once, ordering his accusers also to state before you what they have against him.”

³¹So the soldiers, according to their instructions, took Paul and brought him during the night to Antipatris.

³²The next day they let the horsemen go on with him, while they returned to the barracks.

³³When they came to Caesarea and delivered the letter to the governor, they presented Paul also before him.

³⁴On reading the letter, he asked what province he belonged to, and when he learned that he was from Cilicia,

³⁵he said, “I will give you a hearing when your accusers arrive.” Then he ordered that he be kept under guard in Herod’s headquarters.