Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea,

²“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

³For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’”

⁴Now John wore a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.

⁵Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him,

⁶and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

⁷But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

⁸Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

⁹And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.

¹⁰Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

¹¹“I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

¹²His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

¹³Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him.

¹⁴John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”

¹⁵But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented.

¹⁶And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him;

¹⁷and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

¹“When the LORD your God cuts off the nations whose land the LORD your God is giving you, and you dispossess them and dwell in their cities and in their houses,

²you shall set apart three cities for yourselves in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess.

³You shall measure the distances and divide into three parts the area of the land that the LORD your God gives you as a possession, so that any manslayer can flee to them.

⁴“This is the provision for the manslayer, who by fleeing there may save his life. If anyone kills his neighbor unintentionally without having hated him in the past —

⁵as when someone goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood, and his hand swings the axe to cut down a tree, and the head slips from the handle and strikes his neighbor so that he dies — he may flee to one of these cities and live,

⁶lest the avenger of blood in hot anger pursue the manslayer and overtake him, because the way is long, and strike him fatally, though the man did not deserve to die, since he had not hated his neighbor in the past.

⁷Therefore I command you, You shall set apart three cities.

⁸And if the LORD your God enlarges your territory, as he has sworn to your fathers, and gives you all the land that he promised to give to your fathers —

⁹provided you are careful to keep all this commandment, which I command you today, by loving the LORD your God and by walking ever in his ways — then you shall add three other cities to these three,

¹⁰lest innocent blood be shed in your land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance, and so the guilt of bloodshed be upon you.

¹¹“But if anyone hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him and attacks him and strikes him fatally so that he dies, and he flees into one of these cities,

¹²then the elders of his city shall send and take him from there, and hand him over to the avenger of blood, so that he may die.

¹³Your eye shall not pity him, but you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, so that it may be well with you.

¹⁴“You shall not move your neighbor's landmark, which the men of old have set, in the inheritance that you will hold in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess.

¹⁵“A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established.

¹⁶If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing,

¹⁷then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days.

¹⁸The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely,

¹⁹then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

²⁰And the rest shall hear and fear, and shall never again commit any such evil among you.

²¹Your eye shall not pity. It shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

¹Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me.

²I went up because of a revelation and set before them (though privately before those who seemed influential) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain.

³But even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek.

⁴Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in — who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery —

⁵to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.

⁶And from those who seemed to be influential (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality) — those, I say, who seemed influential added nothing to me.

⁷On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised

⁸(for he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised worked also through me for mine to the Gentiles),

⁹and when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.

¹⁰Only, they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.

¹¹But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.

¹²For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party.

¹³And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.

¹⁴But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

¹⁵We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners;

¹⁶yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

¹⁷But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not!

¹⁸For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor.

¹⁹For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God.

²⁰I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

²¹I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

¹But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.

²And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed.

³And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

⁴For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;

⁵if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;

⁶if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly;

⁷and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked

⁸(for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard);

⁹then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment,

¹⁰and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones,

¹¹whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord.

¹²But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction,

¹³suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you.

¹⁴They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children!

¹⁵Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing,

¹⁶but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet's madness.

¹⁷These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved.

¹⁸For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error.

¹⁹They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.

²⁰For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.

²¹For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.

²²What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”

¹A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of birth.

²It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.

³Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.

⁴The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

⁵It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools.

⁶For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fools; this also is vanity.

⁷Surely oppression drives the wise into madness, and a bribe corrupts the heart.

⁸Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.

⁹Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools.

¹⁰Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.

¹¹Wisdom is good with an inheritance, an advantage to those who see the sun.

¹²For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it.

¹³Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked?

¹⁴In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.

¹⁵In my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing.

¹⁶Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself?

¹⁷Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time?

¹⁸It is good that you should take hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand, for the one who fears God shall come out from both of them.

¹⁹Wisdom gives strength to the wise man more than ten rulers who are in a city.

²⁰Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.

²¹Do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you.

²²Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others.

²³All this I have tested by wisdom. I said, “I will be wise,” but it was far from me.

²⁴That which has been is far off, and deep, very deep; who can find it out?

²⁵I turned my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things, and to know the wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness.

²⁶And I find something more bitter than death: the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her.

²⁷Behold, this is what I found, says the Preacher, while adding one thing to another to find the scheme of things —

²⁸which my soul has sought repeatedly, but I have not found. One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I have not found.

²⁹See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes.

¹Deliver me from my enemies, O my God; protect me from those who rise up against me;

²deliver me from those who work evil, and save me from bloodthirsty men.

³For behold, they lie in wait for my life; fierce men stir up strife against me. For no transgression or sin of mine, O LORD,

⁴for no fault of mine, they run and make ready. Awake, come to meet me, and see!

⁵You, LORD God of hosts, are God of Israel. Rouse yourself to punish all the nations; spare none of those who treacherously plot evil. Selah

⁶Each evening they come back, howling like dogs and prowling about the city.

⁷There they are, bellowing with their mouths with swords in their lips — for “Who,” they think, “will hear us?”

⁸But you, O LORD, laugh at them; you hold all the nations in derision.

⁹O my Strength, I will watch for you, for you, O God, are my fortress.

¹⁰My God in his steadfast love will meet me; God will let me look in triumph on my enemies.

¹¹Kill them not, lest my people forget; make them totter by your power and bring them down, O Lord, our shield!

¹²For the sin of their mouths, the words of their lips, let them be trapped in their pride. For the cursing and lies that they utter,

¹³consume them in wrath; consume them till they are no more, that they may know that God rules over Jacob to the ends of the earth. Selah

¹⁴Each evening they come back, howling like dogs and prowling about the city.

¹⁵They wander about for food and growl if they do not get their fill.

¹⁶But I will sing of your strength; I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning. For you have been to me a fortress and a refuge in the day of my distress.

¹⁷O my Strength, I will sing praises to you, for you, O God, are my fortress, the God who shows me steadfast love.

¹Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment.

²A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.

³When wickedness comes, contempt comes also, and with dishonor comes disgrace.

⁴The words of a man's mouth are deep waters; the fountain of wisdom is a bubbling brook.

⁵It is not good to be partial to the wicked or to deprive the righteous of justice.

⁶A fool's lips walk into a fight, and his mouth invites a beating.

⁷A fool's mouth is his ruin, and his lips are a snare to his soul.

⁸The words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels; they go down into the inner parts of the body.

⁹Whoever is slack in his work is a brother to him who destroys.

¹⁰The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe.

¹¹A rich man's wealth is his strong city, and like a high wall in his imagination.

¹²Before destruction a man's heart is haughty, but humility comes before honor.

¹³If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame.

¹⁴A man's spirit will endure sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear?

¹⁵An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.

¹⁶A man's gift makes room for him and brings him before the great.

¹⁷The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.

¹⁸The lot puts an end to quarrels and decides between powerful contenders.

¹⁹A brother offended is more unyielding than a strong city, and quarreling is like the bars of a castle.

²⁰From the fruit of a man's mouth his stomach is satisfied; he is satisfied by the yield of his lips.

²¹Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.

²²He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the LORD.

²³The poor use entreaties, but the rich answer roughly.

²⁴A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

¹In the four hundred and eightieth year after the people of Israel came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build the house of the LORD.

²The house that King Solomon built for the LORD was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high.

³The vestibule in front of the nave of the house was twenty cubits long, equal to the width of the house, and ten cubits deep in front of the house.

⁴And he made for the house windows with recessed frames.

⁵He also built a structure against the wall of the house, running around the walls of the house, both the nave and the inner sanctuary. And he made side chambers all around.

⁶The lowest story was five cubits broad, the middle one was six cubits broad, and the third was seven cubits broad. For around the outside of the house he made offsets on the wall in order that the supporting beams should not be inserted into the walls of the house.

⁷When the house was built, it was with stone prepared at the quarry, so that neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron was heard in the house while it was being built.

⁸The entrance for the lowest story was on the south side of the house, and one went up by stairs to the middle story, and from the middle story to the third.

⁹So he built the house and finished it, and he made the ceiling of the house of beams and planks of cedar.

¹⁰He built the structure against the whole house, five cubits high, and it was joined to the house with timbers of cedar.

¹¹Now the word of the LORD came to Solomon,

¹²“Concerning this house that you are building, if you will walk in my statutes and obey my rules and keep all my commandments and walk in them, then I will establish my word with you, which I spoke to David your father.

¹³And I will dwell among the children of Israel and will not forsake my people Israel.”

¹⁴So Solomon built the house and finished it.

¹⁵He lined the walls of the house on the inside with boards of cedar. From the floor of the house to the walls of the ceiling, he covered them on the inside with wood, and he covered the floor of the house with boards of cypress.

¹⁶He built twenty cubits of the rear of the house with boards of cedar from the floor to the walls, and he built this within as an inner sanctuary, as the Most Holy Place.

¹⁷The house, that is, the nave in front of the inner sanctuary, was forty cubits long.

¹⁸The cedar within the house was carved in the form of gourds and open flowers. All was cedar; no stone was seen.

¹⁹The inner sanctuary he prepared in the innermost part of the house, to set there the ark of the covenant of the LORD.

²⁰The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty cubits high, and he overlaid it with pure gold. He also overlaid an altar of cedar.

²¹And Solomon overlaid the inside of the house with pure gold, and he drew chains of gold across, in front of the inner sanctuary, and overlaid it with gold.

²²And he overlaid the whole house with gold, until all the house was finished. Also the whole altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary he overlaid with gold.

²³In the inner sanctuary he made two cherubim of olivewood, each ten cubits high.

²⁴Five cubits was the length of one wing of the cherub, and five cubits the length of the other wing of the cherub; it was ten cubits from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other.

²⁵The other cherub also measured ten cubits; both cherubim had the same measure and the same form.

²⁶The height of one cherub was ten cubits, and so was that of the other cherub.

²⁷He put the cherubim in the innermost part of the house. And the wings of the cherubim were spread out so that a wing of one touched the one wall, and a wing of the other cherub touched the other wall; their other wings touched each other in the middle of the house.

²⁸And he overlaid the cherubim with gold.

²⁹Around all the walls of the house he carved engraved figures of cherubim and palm trees and open flowers, in the inner and outer rooms.

³⁰The floor of the house he overlaid with gold in the inner and outer rooms.

³¹For the entrance to the inner sanctuary he made doors of olivewood; the lintel and the doorposts were five-sided.

³²He covered the two doors of olivewood with carvings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers. He overlaid them with gold and spread gold on the cherubim and on the palm trees.

³³So also he made for the entrance to the nave doorposts of olivewood, in the form of a square,

³⁴and two doors of cypress wood. The two leaves of the one door were folding, and the two leaves of the other door were folding.

³⁵On them he carved cherubim and palm trees and open flowers, and he overlaid them with gold evenly applied on the carved work.

³⁶He built the inner court with three courses of cut stone and one course of cedar beams.

³⁷In the fourth year the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid, in the month of Ziv.

³⁸And in the eleventh year, in the month of Bul, which is the eighth month, the house was finished in all its parts, and according to all its specifications. He was seven years in building it.

¹When Jeremiah finished speaking to all the people all these words of the LORD their God, with which the LORD their God had sent him to them,

²Azariah the son of Hoshaiah and Johanan the son of Kareah and all the insolent men said to Jeremiah, “You are telling a lie. The LORD our God did not send you to say, ‘Do not go to Egypt to live there,’

³but Baruch the son of Neriah has set you against us, to deliver us into the hand of the Chaldeans, that they may kill us or take us into exile in Babylon.”

⁴So Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces and all the people did not obey the voice of the LORD, to remain in the land of Judah.

⁵But Johanan the son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces took all the remnant of Judah who had returned to live in the land of Judah from all the nations to which they had been driven —

⁶the men, the women, the children, the princesses, and every person whom Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan; also Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch the son of Neriah.

⁷And they came into the land of Egypt, for they did not obey the voice of the LORD. And they arrived at Tahpanhes.

⁸Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah in Tahpanhes:

⁹“Take in your hands large stones and hide them in the mortar in the pavement that is at the entrance to Pharaoh's palace in Tahpanhes, in the sight of the men of Judah,

¹⁰and say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will send and take Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and I will set his throne above these stones that I have hidden, and he will spread his royal canopy over them.

¹¹He shall come and strike the land of Egypt, giving over to the pestilence those who are doomed to the pestilence, to captivity those who are doomed to captivity, and to the sword those who are doomed to the sword.

¹²I shall kindle a fire in the temples of the gods of Egypt, and he shall burn them and carry them away captive. And he shall clean the land of Egypt as a shepherd cleans his cloak of vermin, and he shall go away from there in peace.

¹³He shall break the obelisks of Heliopolis, which is in the land of Egypt, and the temples of the gods of Egypt he shall burn with fire.’”

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.