Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene—

²during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.

³He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

⁴As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet: “A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.

⁵Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth.

⁶And all people will see God’s salvation.’ ”

⁷John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?

⁸Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.

⁹The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

¹⁰“What should we do then?” the crowd asked.

¹¹John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”

¹²Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?”

¹³“Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them.

¹⁴Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?” He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”

¹⁵The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah.

¹⁶John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

¹⁷His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

¹⁸And with many other words John exhorted the people and proclaimed the good news to them.

¹⁹But when John rebuked Herod the tetrarch because of his marriage to Herodias, his brother’s wife, and all the other evil things he had done,

²⁰Herod added this to them all: He locked John up in prison.

²¹When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened

²²and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

²³Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli,

²⁴the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melki, the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph,

²⁵the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Esli, the son of Naggai,

²⁶the son of Maath, the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein, the son of Josek, the son of Joda,

²⁷the son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the son of Neri,

²⁸the son of Melki, the son of Addi, the son of Cosam, the son of Elmadam, the son of Er,

²⁹the son of Joshua, the son of Eliezer, the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi,

³⁰the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonam, the son of Eliakim,

³¹the son of Melea, the son of Menna, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David,

³²the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Salmon, the son of Nahshon,

³³the son of Amminadab, the son of Ram, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah,

³⁴the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor,

³⁵the son of Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Eber, the son of Shelah,

³⁶the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech,

³⁷the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalalel, the son of Kenan,

³⁸the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.

¹Joseph went and told Pharaoh, “My father and brothers, with their flocks and herds and everything they own, have come from the land of Canaan and are now in Goshen.”

²He chose five of his brothers and presented them before Pharaoh.

³Pharaoh asked the brothers, “What is your occupation?” “Your servants are shepherds,” they replied to Pharaoh, “just as our fathers were.”

⁴They also said to him, “We have come to live here for a while, because the famine is severe in Canaan and your servants’ flocks have no pasture. So now, please let your servants settle in Goshen.”

⁵Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Your father and your brothers have come to you,

⁶and the land of Egypt is before you; settle your father and your brothers in the best part of the land. Let them live in Goshen. And if you know of any among them with special ability, put them in charge of my own livestock.”

⁷Then Joseph brought his father Jacob in and presented him before Pharaoh. After Jacob blessed Pharaoh,

⁸Pharaoh asked him, “How old are you?”

⁹And Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty. My years have been few and difficult, and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers.”

¹⁰Then Jacob blessed Pharaoh and went out from his presence.

¹¹So Joseph settled his father and his brothers in Egypt and gave them property in the best part of the land, the district of Rameses, as Pharaoh directed.

¹²Joseph also provided his father and his brothers and all his father’s household with food, according to the number of their children.

¹³There was no food, however, in the whole region because the famine was severe; both Egypt and Canaan wasted away because of the famine.

¹⁴Joseph collected all the money that was to be found in Egypt and Canaan in payment for the grain they were buying, and he brought it to Pharaoh’s palace.

¹⁵When the money of the people of Egypt and Canaan was gone, all Egypt came to Joseph and said, “Give us food. Why should we die before your eyes? Our money is all gone.”

¹⁶“Then bring your livestock,” said Joseph. “I will sell you food in exchange for your livestock, since your money is gone.”

¹⁷So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and he gave them food in exchange for their horses, their sheep and goats, their cattle and donkeys. And he brought them through that year with food in exchange for all their livestock.

¹⁸When that year was over, they came to him the following year and said, “We cannot hide from our lord the fact that since our money is gone and our livestock belongs to you, there is nothing left for our lord except our bodies and our land.

¹⁹Why should we perish before your eyes—we and our land as well? Buy us and our land in exchange for food, and we with our land will be in bondage to Pharaoh. Give us seed so that we may live and not die, and that the land may not become desolate.”

²⁰So Joseph bought all the land in Egypt for Pharaoh. The Egyptians, one and all, sold their fields, because the famine was too severe for them. The land became Pharaoh’s,

²¹and Joseph reduced the people to servitude, from one end of Egypt to the other.

²²However, he did not buy the land of the priests, because they received a regular allotment from Pharaoh and had food enough from the allotment Pharaoh gave them. That is why they did not sell their land.

²³Joseph said to the people, “Now that I have bought you and your land today for Pharaoh, here is seed for you so you can plant the ground.

²⁴But when the crop comes in, give a fifth of it to Pharaoh. The other four-fifths you may keep as seed for the fields and as food for yourselves and your households and your children.”

²⁵“You have saved our lives,” they said. “May we find favor in the eyes of our lord; we will be in bondage to Pharaoh.”

²⁶So Joseph established it as a law concerning land in Egypt—still in force today—that a fifth of the produce belongs to Pharaoh. It was only the land of the priests that did not become Pharaoh’s.

²⁷Now the Israelites settled in Egypt in the region of Goshen. They acquired property there and were fruitful and increased greatly in number.

²⁸Jacob lived in Egypt seventeen years, and the years of his life were a hundred and forty-seven.

²⁹When the time drew near for Israel to die, he called for his son Joseph and said to him, “If I have found favor in your eyes, put your hand under my thigh and promise that you will show me kindness and faithfulness. Do not bury me in Egypt,

³⁰but when I rest with my fathers, carry me out of Egypt and bury me where they are buried.” “I will do as you say,” he said.

³¹“Swear to me,” he said. Then Joseph swore to him, and Israel worshiped as he leaned on the top of his staff.

¹Then after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also.

²I went in response to a revelation and, meeting privately with those esteemed as leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure I was not running and had not been running my race in vain.

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

⁴This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves.

⁵We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.

⁶As for those who were held in high esteem—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism—they added nothing to my message.

⁷On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised.

⁸For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles.

⁹James, Cephas and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised.

¹⁰All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.

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

¹²For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group.

¹³The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

¹⁴When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?

¹⁵“We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles

¹⁶know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.

¹⁷“But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners, doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not!

¹⁸If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker.

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

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

²¹I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

¹After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.”

²At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it.

³And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and ruby. A rainbow that shone like an emerald encircled the throne.

⁴Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and seated on them were twenty-four elders. They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads.

⁵From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder. In front of the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits of God.

⁶Also in front of the throne there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal. In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back.

⁷The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle.

⁸Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings. Day and night they never stop saying: “ ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,’ who was, and is, and is to come.”

⁹Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever,

¹⁰the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say:

¹¹“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”

¹Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong.

²Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.

³A dream comes when there are many cares, and many words mark the speech of a fool.

⁴When you make a vow to God, do not delay to fulfill it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow.

⁵It is better not to make a vow than to make one and not fulfill it.

⁶Do not let your mouth lead you into sin. And do not protest to the temple messenger, “My vow was a mistake.” Why should God be angry at what you say and destroy the work of your hands?

⁷Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore fear God.

⁸If you see the poor oppressed in a district, and justice and rights denied, do not be surprised at such things; for one official is eyed by a higher one, and over them both are others higher still.

⁹The increase from the land is taken by all; the king himself profits from the fields.

¹⁰Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless.

¹¹As goods increase, so do those who consume them. And what benefit are they to the owners except to feast their eyes on them?

¹²The sleep of a laborer is sweet, whether they eat little or much, but as for the rich, their abundance permits them no sleep.

¹³I have seen a grievous evil under the sun: wealth hoarded to the harm of its owners,

¹⁴or wealth lost through some misfortune, so that when they have children there is nothing left for them to inherit.

¹⁵Everyone comes naked from their mother’s womb, and as everyone comes, so they depart. They take nothing from their toil that they can carry in their hands.

¹⁶This too is a grievous evil: As everyone comes, so they depart, and what do they gain, since they toil for the wind?

¹⁷All their days they eat in darkness, with great frustration, affliction and anger.

¹⁸This is what I have observed to be good: that it is appropriate for a person to eat, to drink and to find satisfaction in their toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given them—for this is their lot.

¹⁹Moreover, when God gives someone wealth and possessions, and the ability to enjoy them, to accept their lot and be happy in their toil—this is a gift of God.

²⁰They seldom reflect on the days of their life, because God keeps them occupied with gladness of heart.

¹For the director of music. Of the Sons of Korah. A psalm. Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy.

²For the LORD Most High is awesome, the great King over all the earth.

³He subdued nations under us, peoples under our feet.

⁴He chose our inheritance for us, the pride of Jacob, whom he loved.

⁵God has ascended amid shouts of joy, the LORD amid the sounding of trumpets.

⁶Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises to our King, sing praises.

⁷For God is the King of all the earth; sing to him a psalm of praise.

⁸God reigns over the nations; God is seated on his holy throne.

⁹The nobles of the nations assemble as the people of the God of Abraham, for the kings of the earth belong to God; he is greatly exalted.

¹To humans belong the plans of the heart, but from the LORD comes the proper answer of the tongue.

²All a person’s ways seem pure to them, but motives are weighed by the LORD.

³Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.

⁴The LORD works out everything to its proper end— even the wicked for a day of disaster.

⁵The LORD detests all the proud of heart. Be sure of this: They will not go unpunished.

⁶Through love and faithfulness sin is atoned for; through the fear of the LORD evil is avoided.

⁷When the LORD takes pleasure in anyone’s way, he causes their enemies to make peace with them.

⁸Better a little with righteousness than much gain with injustice.

⁹In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps.

¹⁰The lips of a king speak as an oracle, and his mouth does not betray justice.

¹¹Honest scales and balances belong to the LORD; all the weights in the bag are of his making.

¹²Kings detest wrongdoing, for a throne is established through righteousness.

¹³Kings take pleasure in honest lips; they value the one who speaks what is right.

¹⁴A king’s wrath is a messenger of death, but the wise will appease it.

¹⁵When a king’s face brightens, it means life; his favor is like a rain cloud in spring.

¹⁶How much better to get wisdom than gold, to get insight rather than silver!

¹⁷The highway of the upright avoids evil; those who guard their ways preserve their lives.

¹⁸Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.

¹⁹Better to be lowly in spirit along with the oppressed than to share plunder with the proud.

²⁰Whoever gives heed to instruction prospers, and blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD.

²¹The wise in heart are called discerning, and gracious words promote instruction.

²²Prudence is a fountain of life to the prudent, but folly brings punishment to fools.

²³The hearts of the wise make their mouths prudent, and their lips promote instruction.

²⁴Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.

²⁵There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.

²⁶The appetite of laborers works for them; their hunger drives them on.

²⁷A scoundrel plots evil, and on their lips it is like a scorching fire.

²⁸A perverse person stirs up conflict, and a gossip separates close friends.

²⁹A violent person entices their neighbor and leads them down a path that is not good.

³⁰Whoever winks with their eye is plotting perversity; whoever purses their lips is bent on evil.

³¹Gray hair is a crown of splendor; it is attained in the way of righteousness.

³²Better a patient person than a warrior, one with self-control than one who takes a city.

³³The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.

¹Now Naomi had a relative on her husband’s side, a man of standing from the clan of Elimelek, whose name was Boaz.

²And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor.” Naomi said to her, “Go ahead, my daughter.”

³So she went out, entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she was working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelek.

⁴Just then Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, “The LORD be with you!” “The LORD bless you!” they answered.

⁵Boaz asked the overseer of his harvesters, “Who does that young woman belong to?”

⁶The overseer replied, “She is the Moabite who came back from Moab with Naomi.

⁷She said, ‘Please let me glean and gather among the sheaves behind the harvesters.’ She came into the field and has remained here from morning till now, except for a short rest in the shelter.”

⁸So Boaz said to Ruth, “My daughter, listen to me. Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me.

⁹Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the women. I have told the men not to lay a hand on you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.”

¹⁰At this, she bowed down with her face to the ground. She asked him, “Why have I found such favor in your eyes that you notice me—a foreigner?”

¹¹Boaz replied, “I’ve been told all about what you have done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband—how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people you did not know before.

¹²May the LORD repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.”

¹³“May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my lord,” she said. “You have put me at ease by speaking kindly to your servant—though I do not have the standing of one of your servants.”

¹⁴At mealtime Boaz said to her, “Come over here. Have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar.” When she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted and had some left over.

¹⁵As she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his men, “Let her gather among the sheaves and don’t reprimand her.

¹⁶Even pull out some stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up, and don’t rebuke her.”

¹⁷So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening. Then she threshed the barley she had gathered, and it amounted to about an ephah.

¹⁸She carried it back to town, and her mother-in-law saw how much she had gathered. Ruth also brought out and gave her what she had left over after she had eaten enough.

¹⁹Her mother-in-law asked her, “Where did you glean today? Where did you work? Blessed be the man who took notice of you!” Then Ruth told her mother-in-law about the one at whose place she had been working. “The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz,” she said.

²⁰“The LORD bless him!” Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. “He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead.” She added, “That man is our close relative; he is one of our guardian-redeemers.”

²¹Then Ruth the Moabite said, “He even said to me, ‘Stay with my workers until they finish harvesting all my grain.’ ”

²²Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, “It will be good for you, my daughter, to go with the women who work for him, because in someone else’s field you might be harmed.”

²³So Ruth stayed close to the women of Boaz to glean until the barley and wheat harvests were finished. And she lived with her mother-in-law.

¹“Go down, sit in the dust, Virgin Daughter Babylon; sit on the ground without a throne, queen city of the Babylonians. No more will you be called tender or delicate.

²Take millstones and grind flour; take off your veil. Lift up your skirts, bare your legs, and wade through the streams.

³Your nakedness will be exposed and your shame uncovered. I will take vengeance; I will spare no one.”

⁴Our Redeemer—the LORD Almighty is his name— is the Holy One of Israel.

⁵“Sit in silence, go into darkness, queen city of the Babylonians; no more will you be called queen of kingdoms.

⁶I was angry with my people and desecrated my inheritance; I gave them into your hand, and you showed them no mercy. Even on the aged you laid a very heavy yoke.

⁷You said, ‘I am forever— the eternal queen!’ But you did not consider these things or reflect on what might happen.

⁸“Now then, listen, you lover of pleasure, lounging in your security and saying to yourself, ‘I am, and there is none besides me. I will never be a widow or suffer the loss of children.’

⁹Both of these will overtake you in a moment, on a single day: loss of children and widowhood. They will come upon you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries and all your potent spells.

¹⁰You have trusted in your wickedness and have said, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and knowledge mislead you when you say to yourself, ‘I am, and there is none besides me.’

¹¹Disaster will come upon you, and you will not know how to conjure it away. A calamity will fall upon you that you cannot ward off with a ransom; a catastrophe you cannot foresee will suddenly come upon you.

¹²“Keep on, then, with your magic spells and with your many sorceries, which you have labored at since childhood. Perhaps you will succeed, perhaps you will cause terror.

¹³All the counsel you have received has only worn you out! Let your astrologers come forward, those stargazers who make predictions month by month, let them save you from what is coming upon you.

¹⁴Surely they are like stubble; the fire will burn them up. They cannot even save themselves from the power of the flame. These are not coals for warmth; this is not a fire to sit by.

¹⁵That is all they are to you— these you have dealt with and labored with since childhood. All of them go on in their error; there is not one that can save you.

¹While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples

²and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”

³So Paul asked, “Then what baptism did you receive?” “John’s baptism,” they replied.

⁴Paul said, “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.”

⁵On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

⁶When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.

⁷There were about twelve men in all.

⁸Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God.

⁹But some of them became obstinate; they refused to believe and publicly maligned the Way. So Paul left them. He took the disciples with him and had discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus.

¹⁰This went on for two years, so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord.

¹¹God did extraordinary miracles through Paul,

¹²so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them.

¹³Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, “In the name of the Jesus whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.”

¹⁴Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this.

¹⁵One day the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know about, but who are you?”

¹⁶Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding.

¹⁷When this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor.

¹⁸Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed what they had done.

¹⁹A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas.

²⁰In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.

²¹After all this had happened, Paul decided to go to Jerusalem, passing through Macedonia and Achaia. “After I have been there,” he said, “I must visit Rome also.”

²²He sent two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, to Macedonia, while he stayed in the province of Asia a little longer.

²³About that time there arose a great disturbance about the Way.

²⁴A silversmith named Demetrius, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought in a lot of business for the craftsmen there.

²⁵He called them together, along with the workers in related trades, and said: “You know, my friends, that we receive a good income from this business.

²⁶And you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. He says that gods made by human hands are no gods at all.

²⁷There is danger not only that our trade will lose its good name, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited; and the goddess herself, who is worshiped throughout the province of Asia and the world, will be robbed of her divine majesty.”

²⁸When they heard this, they were furious and began shouting: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”

²⁹Soon the whole city was in an uproar. The people seized Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul’s traveling companions from Macedonia, and all of them rushed into the theater together.

³⁰Paul wanted to appear before the crowd, but the disciples would not let him.

³¹Even some of the officials of the province, friends of Paul, sent him a message begging him not to venture into the theater.

³²The assembly was in confusion: Some were shouting one thing, some another. Most of the people did not even know why they were there.

³³The Jews in the crowd pushed Alexander to the front, and they shouted instructions to him. He motioned for silence in order to make a defense before the people.

³⁴But when they realized he was a Jew, they all shouted in unison for about two hours: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”

³⁵The city clerk quieted the crowd and said: “Fellow Ephesians, doesn’t all the world know that the city of Ephesus is the guardian of the temple of the great Artemis and of her image, which fell from heaven?

³⁶Therefore, since these facts are undeniable, you ought to calm down and not do anything rash.

³⁷You have brought these men here, though they have neither robbed temples nor blasphemed our goddess.

³⁸If, then, Demetrius and his fellow craftsmen have a grievance against anybody, the courts are open and there are proconsuls. They can press charges.

³⁹If there is anything further you want to bring up, it must be settled in a legal assembly.

⁴⁰As it is, we are in danger of being charged with rioting because of what happened today. In that case we would not be able to account for this commotion, since there is no reason for it.”

⁴¹After he had said this, he dismissed the assembly.