Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹In those days when there was again a great crowd without anything to eat, he called his disciples and said to them,

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

³If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way — and some of them have come from a great distance.”

⁴His disciples replied, “How can one feed these people with bread here in the desert?”

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

⁶Then he ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground; and he took the seven loaves, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute; and they distributed them to the crowd.

⁷They had also a few small fish; and after blessing them, he ordered that these too should be distributed.

⁸They ate and were filled; and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full.

⁹Now 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, asking him for a sign from heaven, to test him.

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

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

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

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

¹⁶They said to one another, “It is because we have no bread.”

¹⁷And becoming aware of it, Jesus said to them, “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened?

¹⁸Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to 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 collect?” They said to him, “Twelve.”

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

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

²²They came to Bethsaida. Some people brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him.

²³He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village; and when he had put saliva on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Can you see anything?”

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

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

²⁶Then he sent him away to his home, saying, “Do not even go into the village.”

²⁷Jesus 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 answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”

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

³⁰And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.

³¹Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

³²He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

³³But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

³⁴He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

³⁵For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.

³⁶For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?

³⁷Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?

³⁸Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

¹You shall make for yourselves no idols and erect no carved images or pillars, and you shall not place figured stones in your land, to worship at them; for I am the LORD your God.

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

³If you follow my statutes and keep my commandments and observe them faithfully,

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

⁵Your threshing shall overtake the vintage, and the vintage shall overtake the sowing; you shall eat your bread to the full, and live securely in your land.

⁶And I will grant peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and no one shall make you afraid; I will remove dangerous animals from the land, and no sword shall go through your land.

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

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

⁹I will look with favor upon you and make you fruitful and multiply you; and I will maintain my covenant with you.

¹⁰You shall eat old grain long stored, and you shall have to clear out the old to make way for the new.

¹¹I will place my dwelling in your midst, and I 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, to be their slaves no more; I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.

¹⁴But if you will not obey me, and do not observe all these commandments,

¹⁵if you spurn my statutes, and abhor my ordinances, so that you will not observe all my commandments, and you break my covenant,

¹⁶I in turn will do this to you: I will bring terror on you; consumption and fever that waste the eyes and cause life to pine away. 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 by your enemies; your foes shall rule over you, and you shall flee though no one pursues you.

¹⁸And if in spite of this you will not obey me, I will continue to punish you sevenfold for your sins.

¹⁹I will break your proud glory, and I will make your sky like iron and your earth like copper.

²⁰Your strength shall be spent to no purpose: your land shall not yield its produce, and the trees of the land shall not yield their fruit.

²¹If you continue hostile to me, and will not obey me, I will continue to plague you sevenfold for your sins.

²²I will let loose wild animals against you, and they shall bereave you of your children and destroy your livestock; they shall make you few in number, and your roads shall be deserted.

²³If in spite of these punishments you have not turned back to me, but continue hostile to me,

²⁴then I too will continue hostile to you: I myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins.

²⁵I will bring the sword against you, executing vengeance for the covenant; and if you withdraw within your cities, I will send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into enemy hands.

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

²⁷But if, despite this, you disobey me, and continue hostile to me,

²⁸I will continue hostile to you in fury; I in turn will punish you myself sevenfold for your sins.

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

³⁰I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars; I will heap your carcasses on the carcasses of your idols. I will abhor you.

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

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

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

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

³⁵As long as it lies desolate, it shall have the rest it did not have on your sabbaths when you were living on it.

³⁶And as for those of you who survive, 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 though no one pursues.

³⁷They shall stumble over one another, as if to escape a sword, though no one pursues; and you shall have no power to stand against your enemies.

³⁸You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall devour you.

³⁹And those of you who survive shall languish in the land of your enemies because of their iniquities; also they shall languish because of the iniquities of their ancestors.

⁴⁰But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their ancestors, in that they committed treachery against me and, moreover, that they continued hostile to me —

⁴¹so that I, in turn, continued hostile 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 will I remember my covenant with Jacob; I will remember also my covenant with Isaac and also my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.

⁴³For the land shall be deserted by them, and enjoy its sabbath years by lying desolate without them, while they shall make amends for their iniquity, because they dared to spurn my ordinances, and they abhorred my statutes.

⁴⁴Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not spurn them, or abhor them so as to destroy them utterly and break my covenant with them; for I am the LORD their God;

⁴⁵but I will remember in their favor the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, to be their God: I am the LORD.

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

¹Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest is still open, let us take care that none of you should seem to have failed to reach it.

²For indeed the 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, just as God has said, “As in my anger I swore, ‘They shall not enter my rest,’” though his works were finished at the foundation of the world.

⁴For in one place it speaks about the seventh day as follows, “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.”

⁵And again in this place it says, “They shall not enter my rest.”

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

⁷again he sets a certain day — “today” — saying through David much later, 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 speak later about another day.

⁹So then, a sabbath rest still remains for the people of God;

¹⁰for those who enter God’s rest also cease from their labors as God did from his.

¹¹Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one may fall through such disobedience as theirs.

¹²Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

¹³And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.

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

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

¹⁶Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so 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, who are beloved in God the Father and kept safe for Jesus Christ:

²May mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance.

³Beloved, while eagerly preparing to write to you about the salvation we share, I find it necessary to write and appeal to you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.

⁴For certain intruders have stolen in among you, people who long ago were designated for this condemnation as ungodly, who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

⁵Now I desire to remind you, though you are fully informed, that the Lord, who once for all saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.

⁶And the angels who did not keep their own position, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains in deepest darkness for the judgment of the great day.

⁷Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which, in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

⁸Yet in the same way these dreamers also defile the flesh, reject authority, and slander the glorious ones.

⁹But when the archangel Michael contended with the devil and disputed about the body of Moses, he did not dare to bring a condemnation of slander against him, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”

¹⁰But these people slander whatever they do not understand, and they are destroyed by those things that, like irrational animals, they know by instinct.

¹¹Woe to them! For they go the way of Cain, and abandon themselves to Balaam’s error for the sake of gain, and perish in Korah’s rebellion.

¹²These are blemishes on your love-feasts, while they feast with you without fear, feeding themselves. They are waterless clouds carried along by the winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, uprooted;

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

¹⁴It was also about these that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, “See, the Lord is coming with ten thousands of his holy ones,

¹⁵to execute judgment on all, and to convict everyone of all the 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 and malcontents; they indulge their own lusts; they are bombastic in speech, flattering people to their own advantage.

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

¹⁸for they said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, indulging their own ungodly lusts.”

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

²⁰But you, beloved, build yourselves up on your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit;

²¹keep yourselves in the love of God; look forward to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.

²²And have mercy on some who are wavering;

²³save others by snatching them out of the fire; and have mercy on still others with fear, hating even the tunic defiled by their bodies.

²⁴Now to him who is able to keep you from falling, and to make you stand without blemish in the presence of his glory with rejoicing,

²⁵to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, 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 perfume poured out; therefore the maidens love you.

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

⁵I am black and beautiful, 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 gazed on 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 is veiled beside the flocks of your companions?

⁸If you do not know, O fairest among women, follow the tracks of the flock, and pasture your kids beside the shepherds’ tents.

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

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

¹¹We will make 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 bag of myrrh that lies between my breasts.

¹⁴My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms in the vineyards of En-gedi.

¹⁵Ah, you are beautiful, my love; ah, you are beautiful; your eyes are doves.

¹⁶Ah, you are beautiful, my beloved, truly lovely. 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 to me, “There is no help for you in God.” Selah

³But you, O LORD, are a shield around me, my glory, and the one who lifts up my head.

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

⁵I lie down and sleep; I wake again, for the LORD sustains me.

⁶I am not afraid of ten thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around.

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

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

¹Do not envy the wicked, nor desire to be with them;

²for their minds devise violence, and their lips talk of mischief.

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

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

⁵Wise warriors are mightier than strong ones, and those who have knowledge than those who have strength;

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

⁷Wisdom is too high for fools; in the gate they do not open their mouths.

⁸Whoever plans to do evil will be called a mischief-maker.

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

¹⁰If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength being small;

¹¹if you hold back from rescuing those taken away to death, those who go staggering to the slaughter;

¹²if you say, “Look, 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 all according to their deeds?

¹³My child, 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, you will find a future, and your hope will not be cut off.

¹⁵Do not lie in wait like an outlaw against the home of the righteous; do no violence to the place where the righteous live;

¹⁶for though they fall seven times, they will rise again; but the wicked are overthrown by calamity.

¹⁷Do not rejoice when your enemies fall, and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble,

¹⁸or else the LORD will see it and be displeased, and turn away his anger from them.

¹⁹Do not fret because of evildoers. Do not envy the wicked;

²⁰for the evil have no future; the lamp of the wicked will go out.

²¹My child, fear the LORD and the king, and do not disobey either of them;

²²for disaster comes from them suddenly, and who knows the ruin that both can bring?

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

²⁴Whoever says to the wicked, “You are innocent,” 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.

²⁶One who gives an honest answer gives a kiss on the lips.

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

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

²⁹Do not say, “I will do to others as they have done to me; I will pay them back for what they have done.”

³⁰I passed by the field of one who was lazy, by the vineyard of a stupid person;

³¹and see, 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 warrior.

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 placed it beside Dagon.

³When the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, there was Dagon, fallen on his face to 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, Dagon had fallen on his face to the ground before the ark of the LORD, and the head of Dagon and both his hands were lying cut off upon 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 step on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod to this day.

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

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

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?” The inhabitants of Gath replied, “Let the ark of God be moved on to us.” So they moved the ark of the God of Israel to Gath.

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

¹⁰So they sent the ark of the God of Israel to Ekron. But when the ark of God came to Ekron, the people of Ekron cried out, “Why have they 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;

¹²those who did not die were stricken with tumors, and the cry of the city went up to heaven.

¹Who has believed what we have heard? 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, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

³He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account.

⁴Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.

⁵But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.

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

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

⁸By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future? For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people.

⁹They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich, 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 with pain. When you make his life an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days; through him the will of the LORD shall prosper.

¹¹Out of his anguish he shall see light; he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.

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

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.