Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered, and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him and said to them,

² “I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat.

³And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away.”

⁴And his disciples answered him, “How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?”

⁵And he asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” They said, “Seven.”

⁶And he directed the crowd to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves, and having given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and they set them before the crowd.

⁷And they had a few small fish. And having blessed them, he said that these also should be set before them.

⁸And they ate and were satisfied. And they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full.

⁹And there were about four thousand people. And he sent them away.

¹⁰And immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha.

¹¹The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him.

¹²And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, “Why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.”

¹³And he left them, got into the boat again, and went to the other side.

¹⁴Now they had forgotten to bring bread, and they had only one loaf with them in the boat.

¹⁵And he cautioned them, saying, “Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.”

¹⁶And they began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread.

¹⁷And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened?

¹⁸ Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember?

¹⁹When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” They said to him, “Twelve.”

²⁰“And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” And they said to him, “Seven.”

²¹And he said to them, “Do you not yet understand?”

²²And they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him.

²³And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?”

²⁴And he looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking.”

²⁵Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.

²⁶And he sent him to his home, saying, “Do not even enter the village.”

²⁷And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”

²⁸And they told him, “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.”

²⁹And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.”

³⁰And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him.

³¹And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.

³²And he said this plainly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

³³But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

³⁴And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

³⁵For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.

³⁶ For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?

³⁷For what can a man give in return for his soul?

³⁸For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

¹“You shall not make idols for yourselves or erect an image or pillar, and you shall not set up a figured stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am the LORD your God.

²You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the LORD.

³“If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them,

⁴then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.

⁵Your threshing shall last to the time of the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall last to the time for sowing. And you shall eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land securely.

⁶I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid. And I will remove harmful beasts from the land, and the sword shall not go through your land.

⁷You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.

⁸Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand, and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.

⁹I will turn to you and make you fruitful and multiply you and will confirm my covenant with you.

¹⁰You shall eat old store long kept, and you shall clear out the old to make way for the new.

¹¹I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you.

¹²And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people.

¹³I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. And I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.

¹⁴“But if you will not listen to me and will not do all these commandments,

¹⁵if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my rules, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant,

¹⁶then I will do this to you: I will visit you with panic, with wasting disease and fever that consume the eyes and make the heart ache. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.

¹⁷I will set my face against you, and you shall be struck down before your enemies. Those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee when none pursues you.

¹⁸And if in spite of this you will not listen to me, then I will discipline you again sevenfold for your sins,

¹⁹and I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze.

²⁰And your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield its increase, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit.

²¹“Then if you walk contrary to me and will not listen to me, I will continue striking you, sevenfold for your sins.

²²And I will let loose the wild beasts against you, which shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock and make you few in number, so that your roads shall be deserted.

²³“And if by this discipline you are not turned to me but walk contrary to me,

²⁴then I also will walk contrary to you, and I myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins.

²⁵And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall execute vengeance for the covenant. And if you gather within your cities, I will send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.

²⁶When I break your supply of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in a single oven and shall dole out your bread again by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied.

²⁷“But if in spite of this you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me,

²⁸then I will walk contrary to you in fury, and I myself will discipline you sevenfold for your sins.

²⁹You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters.

³⁰And I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and cast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols, and my soul will abhor you.

³¹And I will lay your cities waste and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your pleasing aromas.

³²And I myself will devastate the land, so that your enemies who settle in it shall be appalled at it.

³³And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you, and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.

³⁴“Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies' land; then the land shall rest, and enjoy its Sabbaths.

³⁵As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your Sabbaths when you were dwelling in it.

³⁶And as for those of you who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall when none pursues.

³⁷They shall stumble over one another, as if to escape a sword, though none pursues. And you shall have no power to stand before your enemies.

³⁸And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.

³⁹And those of you who are left shall rot away in your enemies' lands because of their iniquity, and also because of the iniquities of their fathers they shall rot away like them.

⁴⁰“But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they committed against me, and also in walking contrary to me,

⁴¹so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies — if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity,

⁴²then I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.

⁴³But the land shall be abandoned by them and enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them, and they shall make amends for their iniquity, because they spurned my rules and their soul abhorred my statutes.

⁴⁴Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not spurn them, neither will I abhor them so as to destroy them utterly and break my covenant with them, for I am the LORD their God.

⁴⁵But I will for their sake remember the covenant with their forefathers, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the LORD.”

⁴⁶These are the statutes and rules and laws that the LORD made between himself and the people of Israel through Moses on Mount Sinai.

¹Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.

²For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.

³For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, “As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest,’” although his works were finished from the foundation of the world.

⁴For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.”

⁵And again in this passage he said, “They shall not enter my rest.”

⁶Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience,

⁷again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”

⁸For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on.

⁹So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God,

¹⁰for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

¹¹Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

¹²For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

¹³And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

¹⁴Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

¹⁵For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

¹⁶Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

¹Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ:

²May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.

³Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

⁴For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

⁵Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.

⁶And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day —

⁷just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

⁸Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones.

⁹But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.”

¹⁰But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.

¹¹Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error and perished in Korah's rebellion.

¹²These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted;

¹³wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.

¹⁴It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones,

¹⁵to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”

¹⁶These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires; they are loud-mouthed boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage.

¹⁷But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.

¹⁸They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.”

¹⁹It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit.

²⁰But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit,

²¹keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.

²²And have mercy on those who doubt;

²³save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.

²⁴Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy,

²⁵to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

¹The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's.

²Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine;

³your anointing oils are fragrant; your name is oil poured out; therefore virgins love you.

⁴Draw me after you; let us run. The king has brought me into his chambers. Others We will exult and rejoice in you; we will extol your love more than wine; rightly do they love you.

⁵I am very dark, but lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon.

⁶Do not gaze at me because I am dark, because the sun has looked upon me. My mother's sons were angry with me; they made me keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard I have not kept!

⁷Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you pasture your flock, where you make it lie down at noon; for why should I be like one who veils herself beside the flocks of your companions?

⁸If you do not know, O most beautiful among women, follow in the tracks of the flock, and pasture your young goats beside the shepherds' tents.

⁹I compare you, my love, to a mare among Pharaoh's chariots.

¹⁰Your cheeks are lovely with ornaments, your neck with strings of jewels.

¹¹We will make for you ornaments of gold, studded with silver.

¹²While the king was on his couch, my nard gave forth its fragrance.

¹³My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh that lies between my breasts.

¹⁴My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms in the vineyards of Engedi.

¹⁵Behold, you are beautiful, my love; behold, you are beautiful; your eyes are doves.

¹⁶Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved, truly delightful. Our couch is green;

¹⁷the beams of our house are cedar; our rafters are pine.

¹O LORD, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me;

²many are saying of my soul, “There is no salvation for him in God.” Selah

³But you, O LORD, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head.

⁴I cried aloud to the LORD, and he answered me from his holy hill. Selah

⁵I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the LORD sustained me.

⁶I will not be afraid of many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around.

⁷Arise, O LORD! Save me, O my God! For you strike all my enemies on the cheek; you break the teeth of the wicked.

⁸Salvation belongs to the LORD; your blessing be on your people! Selah

¹Be not envious of evil men, nor desire to be with them,

²for their hearts devise violence, and their lips talk of trouble.

³By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established;

⁴by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.

⁵A wise man is full of strength, and a man of knowledge enhances his might,

⁶for by wise guidance you can wage your war, and in abundance of counselors there is victory.

⁷Wisdom is too high for a fool; in the gate he does not open his mouth.

⁸Whoever plans to do evil will be called a schemer.

⁹The devising of folly is sin, and the scoffer is an abomination to mankind.

¹⁰If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.

¹¹Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.

¹²If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?

¹³My son, eat honey, for it is good, and the drippings of the honeycomb are sweet to your taste.

¹⁴Know that wisdom is such to your soul; if you find it, there will be a future, and your hope will not be cut off.

¹⁵Lie not in wait as a wicked man against the dwelling of the righteous; do no violence to his home;

¹⁶for the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity.

¹⁷Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles,

¹⁸lest the LORD see it and be displeased, and turn away his anger from him.

¹⁹Fret not yourself because of evildoers, and be not envious of the wicked,

²⁰for the evil man has no future; the lamp of the wicked will be put out.

²¹My son, fear the LORD and the king, and do not join with those who do otherwise,

²²for disaster will arise suddenly from them, and who knows the ruin that will come from them both?

²³These also are sayings of the wise. Partiality in judging is not good.

²⁴Whoever says to the wicked, “You are in the right,” will be cursed by peoples, abhorred by nations,

²⁵but those who rebuke the wicked will have delight, and a good blessing will come upon them.

²⁶Whoever gives an honest answer kisses the lips.

²⁷Prepare your work outside; get everything ready for yourself in the field, and after that build your house.

²⁸Be not a witness against your neighbor without cause, and do not deceive with your lips.

²⁹Do not say, “I will do to him as he has done to me; I will pay the man back for what he has done.”

³⁰I passed by the field of a sluggard, by the vineyard of a man lacking sense,

³¹and behold, it was all overgrown with thorns; the ground was covered with nettles, and its stone wall was broken down.

³²Then I saw and considered it; I looked and received instruction.

³³A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest,

³⁴and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.

¹When the Philistines captured the ark of God, they brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod.

²Then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it into the house of Dagon and set it up beside Dagon.

³And when the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the LORD. So they took Dagon and put him back in his place.

⁴But when they rose early on the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen face downward on the ground before the ark of the LORD, and the head of Dagon and both his hands were lying cut off on the threshold. Only the trunk of Dagon was left to him.

⁵This is why the priests of Dagon and all who enter the house of Dagon do not tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod to this day.

⁶The hand of the LORD was heavy against the people of Ashdod, and he terrified and afflicted them with tumors, both Ashdod and its territory.

⁷And when the men of Ashdod saw how things were, they said, “The ark of the God of Israel must not remain with us, for his hand is hard against us and against Dagon our god.”

⁸So they sent and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines and said, “What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel?” They answered, “Let the ark of the God of Israel be brought around to Gath.” So they brought the ark of the God of Israel there.

⁹But after they had brought it around, the hand of the LORD was against the city, causing a very great panic, and he afflicted the men of the city, both young and old, so that tumors broke out on them.

¹⁰So they sent the ark of God to Ekron. But as soon as the ark of God came to Ekron, the people of Ekron cried out, “They have brought around to us the ark of the God of Israel to kill us and our people.”

¹¹They sent therefore and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines and said, “Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it return to its own place, that it may not kill us and our people.” For there was a deathly panic throughout the whole city. The hand of God was very heavy there.

¹²The men who did not die were struck with tumors, and the cry of the city went up to heaven.

¹Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

²For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.

³He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

⁴Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

⁵But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

⁶All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned — every one — to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

⁷He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

⁸By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?

⁹And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.

¹⁰Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

¹¹Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.

¹²Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

¹And looking intently at the council, Paul said, “Brothers, I have lived my life before God in all good conscience up to this day.”

²And the high priest Ananias commanded those who stood by him to strike him on the mouth.

³Then Paul said to him, “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! Are you sitting to judge me according to the law, and yet contrary to the law you order me to be struck?”

⁴Those who stood by said, “Would you revile God's high priest?”

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

⁶Now when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. It is with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial.”

⁷And when he had said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided.

⁸For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all.

⁹Then a great clamor arose, and some of the scribes of the Pharisees' party stood up and contended sharply, “We find nothing wrong in this man. What if a spirit or an angel spoke to him?”

¹⁰And when the dissension became violent, the tribune, afraid that Paul would be torn to pieces by them, commanded the soldiers to go down and take him away from among them by force and bring him into the barracks.

¹¹The following night the Lord stood by him and said, “Take courage, for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must testify also in Rome.”

¹²When it was day, the Jews made a plot and bound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink till they had killed Paul.

¹³There were more than forty who made this conspiracy.

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

¹⁵Now therefore you, along with the council, give notice to the tribune to bring him down to you, as though you were going to determine his case more exactly. And we are ready to kill him before he comes near.”

¹⁶Now the son of Paul's sister heard of their ambush, so he went and entered 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 tell him.”

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

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

²⁰And he said, “The Jews have agreed to ask you to bring Paul down to the council tomorrow, as though they were going to inquire somewhat more closely about him.

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

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

²³Then he called two of the centurions and said, “Get ready two hundred soldiers, with seventy horsemen and two hundred spearmen to go as far as Caesarea at the third hour of the night.

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

²⁵And he 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 when I came upon them with the soldiers and rescued him, having learned that he was a Roman citizen.

²⁸And desiring to know the charge for which they were accusing him, I brought him down to their council.

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

³⁰And when it was disclosed to me 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 by night to Antipatris.

³²And on the next day they returned to the barracks, letting the horsemen go on with him.

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

³⁴On reading the letter, he asked what province he was from. And when he learned that he was from Cilicia,

³⁵he said, “I will give you a hearing when your accusers arrive.” And he commanded him to be guarded in Herod's praetorium.