Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming,

²“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

³This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’”

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

⁵Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan,

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

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

⁸Bear fruit worthy of repentance.

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

¹⁰Even now the ax is lying at 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 one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. 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 will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

¹³Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, 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 it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented.

¹⁶And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.

¹⁷And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

¹When the LORD your God has cut off the nations whose land the LORD your God is giving you, and you have dispossessed them and settled in their towns and in their houses,

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

³You shall calculate the distances and divide into three regions the land that the LORD your God gives you as a possession, so that any homicide can flee to one of them.

⁴Now this is the case of a homicide who might flee there and live, that is, someone who has killed another person unintentionally when the two had not been at enmity before:

⁵Suppose someone goes into the forest with another to cut wood, and when one of them swings the ax to cut down a tree, the head slips from the handle and strikes the other person who then dies; the killer may flee to one of these cities and live.

⁶But if the distance is too great, the avenger of blood in hot anger might pursue and overtake and put the killer to death, although a death sentence was not deserved, since the two had not been at enmity before.

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

⁸If the LORD your God enlarges your territory, as he swore to your ancestors — and he will give you all the land that he promised your ancestors to give you,

⁹provided you diligently observe this entire commandment that I command you today, by loving the LORD your God and walking always in his ways — then you shall add three more cities to these three,

¹⁰so that the blood of an innocent person may not be shed in the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, thereby bringing bloodguilt upon you.

¹¹But if someone at enmity with another lies in wait and attacks and takes the life of that person, and flees into one of these cities,

¹²then the elders of the killer’s city shall send to have the culprit taken from there and handed over to the avenger of blood to be put to death.

¹³Show no pity; you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, so that it may go well with you.

¹⁴You must not move your neighbor’s boundary marker, set up by former generations, on the property that will be allotted to you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess.

¹⁵A single witness shall not suffice to convict a person of any crime or wrongdoing in connection with any offense that may be committed. Only on the evidence of two or three witnesses shall a charge be sustained.

¹⁶If a malicious witness comes forward to accuse someone 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,

¹⁸and the judges shall make a thorough inquiry. If the witness is a false witness, having testified falsely against another,

¹⁹then you shall do to the false witness just as the false witness had meant to do to the other. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

²⁰The rest shall hear and be afraid, and a crime such as this shall never again be committed among you.

²¹Show no pity: 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 in response to a revelation. Then I laid before them (though only in a private meeting with the acknowledged leaders) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure that I was not running, or had not run, in vain.

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

⁴But because of false believers secretly brought in, who slipped in to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might enslave us —

⁵we did not submit to them even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might always remain with you.

⁶And from those who were supposed to be acknowledged leaders (what they actually were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality) — those leaders contributed nothing to me.

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

⁸(for he who worked through Peter making him an apostle to the circumcised also worked through me in sending me to the Gentiles),

⁹and when James and Cephas and John, who were acknowledged pillars, recognized the grace that had been given to me, they gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.

¹⁰They asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was eager to do.

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

¹²for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But after they came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction.

¹³And the other Jews joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.

¹⁴But when I saw that they were not acting consistently 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 compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

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

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

¹⁷But if, in our effort to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have been found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not!

¹⁸But if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor.

¹⁹For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ;

²⁰and it is no longer I who live, but it is 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 justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.

¹But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive opinions. They will even deny the Master who bought them — bringing swift destruction on themselves.

²Even so, many will follow their licentious ways, and because of these teachers the way of truth will be maligned.

³And in their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their condemnation, pronounced against them long ago, has not been idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

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

⁵and if he did not spare the ancient world, even though he saved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood on a world of the ungodly;

⁶and if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction and made them an example of what is coming to the ungodly;

⁷and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man greatly distressed by the licentiousness of the lawless

⁸(for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by their lawless deeds that he saw and heard),

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

¹⁰— especially those who indulge their flesh in depraved lust, and who despise authority. Bold and willful, they are not afraid to slander the glorious ones,

¹¹whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not bring against them a slanderous judgment from the Lord.

¹²These people, however, are like irrational animals, mere creatures of instinct, born to be caught and killed. They slander what they do not understand, and when those creatures are destroyed, they also will be destroyed,

¹³suffering the penalty for doing wrong. They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their dissipation 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!

¹⁵They have left the straight road and have gone astray, following the road of Balaam son of Bosor, who loved the wages of doing wrong,

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

¹⁷These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm; for them the deepest darkness has been reserved.

¹⁸For they speak bombastic nonsense, and with licentious desires of the flesh they entice people who have just escaped from those who live in error.

¹⁹They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption; for people are slaves to whatever masters them.

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 overpowered, 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 that was passed on to them.

²²It has happened to them according to the true proverb, “The dog turns back to its own vomit,” and, “The sow is washed only to wallow in the mud.”

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 everyone, and the living will lay it to heart.

³Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of countenance 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 to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools.

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

⁷Surely oppression makes the wise foolish, and a bribe corrupts the heart.

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

⁹Do not be quick to anger, for anger lodges in the bosom of fools.

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

¹¹Wisdom is as good as 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 gives life to the one who possesses 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 mortals may not find out anything that will come after them.

¹⁵In my vain life I have seen everything; there are righteous people who perish in their righteousness, and there are wicked people who prolong their life in their evildoing.

¹⁶Do not be too righteous, and do not act too wise; why should you destroy yourself?

¹⁷Do not be too wicked, and do not be a fool; why should you die before your time?

¹⁸It is good that you should take hold of the one, without letting go of the other; for the one who fears God shall succeed with both.

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

²⁰Surely there is no one on earth so righteous as to do good without ever sinning.

²¹Do not give heed to everything that people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you;

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

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

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

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

²⁶I found more bitter than death the woman who is a trap, whose heart is snares and nets, whose hands are fetters; one who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her.

²⁷See, this is what I found, says the Teacher, adding one thing to another to find the sum,

²⁸which my mind 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 human beings straightforward, but they have devised 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; from the bloodthirsty save me.

³Even now they lie in wait for my life; the mighty stir up strife against me. For no transgression or sin of mine, O LORD,

⁴for no fault of mine, they run and make ready. Rouse yourself, come to my help and see!

⁵You, LORD God of hosts, are God of Israel. Awake 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 sharp words on their lips — for “Who,” they think, “will hear us?”

⁸But you laugh at them, O LORD; 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; my God will let me look in triumph on my enemies.

¹¹Do not kill them, or my people may 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 until they are no more. Then it will be known to the ends of the earth that God rules over Jacob. Selah

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

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

¹⁶But I will sing of your might; I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning. For you have been a fortress for me 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.

¹The one who lives alone is self-indulgent, showing contempt for all who have sound judgment.

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

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

⁴The words of the mouth are deep waters; the fountain of wisdom is a gushing stream.

⁵It is not right to be partial to the guilty, or to subvert the innocent in judgment.

⁶A fool’s lips bring strife, and a fool’s mouth invites a flogging.

⁷The mouths of fools are their ruin, and their lips a snare to themselves.

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

⁹One who is slack in work is close kin to a vandal.

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

¹¹The wealth of the rich is their strong city; in their imagination it is like a high wall.

¹²Before destruction one’s heart is haughty, but humility goes before honor.

¹³If one gives answer before hearing, it is folly and shame.

¹⁴The human spirit will endure sickness; but a broken spirit — who can bear?

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

¹⁶A gift opens doors; it gives access to the great.

¹⁷The one who first states a case seems right, until the other comes and cross-examines.

¹⁸Casting the lot puts an end to disputes and decides between powerful contenders.

¹⁹An ally offended is stronger than a city; such quarreling is like the bars of a castle.

²⁰From the fruit of the mouth one’s stomach is satisfied; the yield of the lips brings satisfaction.

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.

²⁴Some friends play at friendship but a true friend sticks closer than one’s nearest kin.

¹In the four hundred eightieth year after the Israelites 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 wide, across the width of the house. Its depth was ten cubits in front of the house.

⁴For the house he made 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 wide, the middle one was six cubits wide, and the third was seven cubits wide; 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.

⁷The house was built with stone finished at the quarry, so that neither hammer nor ax nor any tool of iron was heard in the temple while it was being built.

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

⁹So he built the house, and finished it; he roofed the house with beams and planks of cedar.

¹⁰He built the structure against the whole house, each story 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, obey my ordinances, and keep all my commandments by walking in them, then I will establish my promise with you, which I made to your father David.

¹³I 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 rafters 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 rafters, 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 had carvings 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 interior of the inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty cubits high; he overlaid it with pure gold. He also overlaid the altar with cedar.

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

²²Next he overlaid the whole house with gold, in order that the whole house might be perfect; even 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; the wings of the cherubim were spread out so that a wing of one was touching the one wall, and a wing of the other cherub was touching the other wall; their other wings toward the center of the house were touching wing to wing.

²⁸He also overlaid the cherubim with gold.

²⁹He carved the walls of the house all around about with carved engravings of cherubim, 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, four-sided each,

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.

³⁵He carved cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, overlaying them with gold evenly applied upon the carved work.

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

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

³⁸In 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 son of Hoshaiah and Johanan son of Kareah and all the other 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 settle there’;

³but Baruch son of Neriah is inciting you against us, to hand us over to the Chaldeans, in order that they may kill us or take us into exile in Babylon.”

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

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

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

⁹Take some large stones in your hands, and bury them in the clay pavement that is at the entrance to Pharaoh’s palace in Tahpanhes. Let the Judeans see you do it,

¹⁰and say to them, Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to send and take my servant King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon, and he will set his throne above these stones that I have buried, and he will spread his royal canopy over them.

¹¹He shall come and ravage the land of Egypt, giving those who are destined for pestilence, to pestilence, and those who are destined for captivity, to captivity, and those who are destined for the sword, to the sword.

¹²He 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 pick clean the land of Egypt, as a shepherd picks his cloak clean of vermin; and he shall depart from there safely.

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.

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.