Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹“These things I have spoken to you so that you will not be led into sin.

²They willban you from the synagogue, yet an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering aservice to God.

³These things they will do because they have not known the Father nor Me.

⁴But these things I have spoken to you, so that when their hour comes, youmay remember that I told you of them. However, I did not say these things to you at the beginning, because I was with you.

⁵“But now I am going to Him who sent Me; and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’

⁶But because I have said these things to you, grief has filled your heart.

⁷But I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I am leaving; for if I do not leave, theHelper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.

⁸And He, when He comes, will convict the world regarding sin, and righteousness, and judgment:

⁹regarding sin, because they do not believe in Me;

¹⁰and regarding righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you no longer are going to see Me;

¹¹and regarding judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.

¹²“I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them at the present time.

¹³But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.

¹⁴He will glorify Me, for He will take from Mine and will disclose it to you.

¹⁵All things that the Father has are Mine; this is why I said that He takes from Mine and will disclose it to you.

¹⁶“A little while, and you no longer are going to see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me.”

¹⁷So some of His disciples said to one another, “What is this that He is telling us, ‘A little while, and you are not going to see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me’; and, ‘because I am going to the Father’?”

¹⁸So they were saying, “What is this that He says, ‘A little while’? We do not know what He is talking about.”

¹⁹Jesus knew that they wanted to question Him, and He said to them, “Are you deliberating together about this, that I said, ‘A little while, and you are not going to see Me, and again a little while, and you will see Me’?

²⁰Truly, truly I say to you that you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will grieve, but your grief will be turned into joy!

²¹Whenever a woman is in labor she haspain, because her hour has come; but when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy that achild has been born into the world.

²²Therefore you too have grief now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one is going to take your joy away from you.

²³And on that day you will not question Me about anything. Truly, truly I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you.

²⁴Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full.

²⁵“These things I have spoken to you in figures of speech; an hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech, but will tell you plainly about the Father.

²⁶On that day you will ask in My name, and I am not saying to you that I will request of the Father on your behalf;

²⁷for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came forth from the Father.

²⁸I came forth from the Father and have come into the world; again, I am leaving the world and going to the Father.”

²⁹His disciples *said, “See, now You are speaking plainly and are not using any figure of speech.

³⁰Now we know that You know all things, and that You have no need for anyone to question You; this is why we believe that You came forth from God.”

³¹Jesus replied to them, “Do you now believe?

³²Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own home, and to leave Me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.

³³These things I have spoken to you so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

¹Now the LORD said to Moses, “Cut out for yourself two stone tablets like the former ones, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets which you smashed.

²So be ready by morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to Me on the top of the mountain.

³And no one is to come up with you, nor let anyone be seen anywhere on the mountain; even the flocks and the herds are not to graze in front of that mountain.”

⁴So he cut out two stone tablets like the former ones, and Moses got up early in the morning and went up to Mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and he took the two stone tablets in his hand.

⁵And the LORD descended in the cloud and stood there with him as he called upon the name of the LORD.

⁶Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in faithfulness and truth;

⁷who keeps faithfulness for thousands, who forgives wrongdoing, violation of His Law, and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, inflicting the punishment of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”

⁸And Moses hurried to bow low toward the ground and worship.

⁹Then he said, “If in any way I have found favor in Your sight, Lord, please may the Lord go along in our midst, even though the people are so obstinate, and pardon our wrongdoing and our sin, and take us as Your own possession.”

¹⁰Then God said, “Behold, I am going to make a covenant. Before all your people I will perform miracles which have not been produced in all the earth nor among any of the nations; and all the people among whom you live will see the working of the LORD, for it is a fearful thing that I am going to perform with you.

¹¹“Be sure to comply with what I am commanding you this day: behold, I am going to drive out the Amorite from you, and the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.

¹²Be careful that you do not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land into which you are going, or it will become a snare in your midst.

¹³But rather, you are to tear down their altars and smash their memorial stones, and cut down their Asherim

¹⁴—for you shall not worship any other god, because the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God—

¹⁵otherwise you might make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they would prostitute themselves with their gods and sacrifice to their gods, and someone might invite you to eat of his sacrifice,

¹⁶and you might take some of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters might prostitute themselves with their gods and cause your sons also to prostitute themselves with their gods.

¹⁷You shall not make for yourself any gods cast in metal.

¹⁸“You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For seven days you are to eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the appointed time in the month of Abib; for in the month of Abib you came out of Egypt.

¹⁹“The firstborn from every womb belongs to Me, and all your male livestock, the firstborn from cattle and sheep.

²⁰You shall redeem with a lamb the firstborn from a donkey; and if you do not redeem it, then you shall break its neck. You shall redeem all the firstborn of your sons. None are to appear before Me empty-handed.

²¹“You shall work six days, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during plowing time and harvest you shall rest.

²²And you shall celebrate the Feast of Weeks, that is, the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year.

²³Three times a year all your males are to appear before the Lord GOD, the God of Israel.

²⁴For I will drive out nations from you and enlarge your borders, and no one will covet your land when you go up three times a year to appear before the LORD your God.

²⁵“You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with leavened bread, nor is the sacrifice of the Feast of the Passover to be left over until morning.

²⁶“You shall bring the very first of the first fruits of your soil into the house of the LORD your God. “You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”

²⁷Then the LORD said to Moses, “Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.”

²⁸So he was there with the LORD for forty days and forty nights; he did not eat bread or drink water. And He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.

²⁹And it came about, when Moses was coming down from Mount Sinai (and the two tablets of the testimony were in Moses’ hand as he was coming down from the mountain), that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because of his speaking with Him.

³⁰So when Aaron and all the sons of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to approach him.

³¹Then Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the rulers in the congregation returned to him; and Moses spoke to them.

³²Afterward all the sons of Israel came near, and he commanded them to do everything that the LORD had spoken to him on Mount Sinai.

³³When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face.

³⁴But whenever Moses went in before the LORD to speak with Him, he would take off the veil until he came out; and whenever he came out and spoke to the sons of Israel what he had been commanded,

³⁵the sons of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses’ face shone. So Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with Him.

¹What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?

²Far from it! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?

³Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?

⁴Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life.

⁵For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,

⁶knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;

⁷for the one who has died is freed from sin.

⁸Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,

⁹knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.

¹⁰For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all time; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.

¹¹So you too, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

¹²Therefore sin is not to reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts,

¹³and do not go on presenting the parts of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead, and your body’s parts as instruments of righteousness for God.

¹⁴For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under the Law but under grace.

¹⁵What then? Are we to sin because we are not under the Law but under grace? Far from it!

¹⁶Do you not know that the one to whom you present yourselves as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of that same one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?

¹⁷But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were entrusted,

¹⁸and after being freed from sin, you became slaves to righteousness.

¹⁹I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented the parts of your body as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your body’s parts as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.

²⁰For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in relation to righteousness.

²¹Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death.

²²But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.

²³For the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

¹Paul, a bond-servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness,

²in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago,

³but at the proper time revealed His word in the proclamation with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior;

⁴To Titus, my true son in a common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.

⁵For this reason I left you in Crete, that you would set in order what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you,

⁶namely, if any man is beyond reproach, the husband of one wife, having children who believe, not accused of indecent behavior or rebellion.

⁷For the overseer must be beyond reproach as God’s steward, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not overindulging in wine, not a bully, not greedy for money,

⁸but hospitable, loving what is good, self-controlled, righteous, holy, disciplined,

⁹holding firmly the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict it.

¹⁰For there are many rebellious people, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision,

¹¹who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they should not teach for the sake of dishonest gain.

¹²One of them, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.”

¹³This testimony is true. For this reason reprimand them severely so that they may be sound in the faith,

¹⁴not paying attention to Jewish myths and commandments of men who turn away from the truth.

¹⁵To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled.

¹⁶They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed.

¹Then Eliphaz the Temanite responded,

²“Can a strong man be of use to God, Or a wise one be useful to himself?

³Is it any pleasure to the Almighty if you are righteous, Or gain if you make your ways blameless?

⁴Is it because of your reverence that He punishes you, That He enters into judgment against you?

⁵Is your wickedness not abundant, And is there no end to your guilty deeds?

⁶For you have seized pledges from your brothers without cause, And stripped people naked.

⁷You have given the weary no water to drink, And you have withheld bread from the hungry.

⁸But the earth belongs to the powerful man, And the one who is honorable dwells on it.

⁹You have sent widows away empty, And the strength of orphans has been crushed.

¹⁰Therefore traps surround you, And sudden dread terrifies you,

¹¹Or darkness, so that you cannot see, And a flood of water covers you.

¹²“Is God not in the height of heaven? Look also at the highest stars, how high they are!

¹³But you say, ‘What does God know? Can He judge through the thick darkness?

¹⁴Clouds are a hiding place for Him, so that He cannot see; And He walks on the vault of heaven.’

¹⁵Will you keep to the ancient path Which wicked people have walked,

¹⁶Who were snatched away before their time, Whose foundations were washed away by a river?

¹⁷They said to God, ‘Go away from us!’ And ‘What can the Almighty do to them?’

¹⁸Yet He filled their houses with good things; But the advice of the wicked is far from me.

¹⁹The righteous see and are glad, And the innocent mock them, saying,

²⁰‘Truly our enemies are eliminated, And fire has consumed their abundance.’

²¹“Be reconciled with Him, and be at peace; Thereby good will come to you.

²²Please receive instruction from His mouth, And put His words in your heart.

²³If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored; If you remove injustice far from your tent,

²⁴And put your gold in the dust, And the gold of Ophir among the stones of the brooks,

²⁵Then the Almighty will be your gold And abundant silver to you.

²⁶For then you will take pleasure in the Almighty And lift up your face to God.

²⁷You will pray to Him, and He will hear you; And you will pay your vows.

²⁸You will also decide something, and it will be established for you; And light will shine on your ways.

²⁹When they have brought you low, you will speak with confidence, And He will save the humble person.

³⁰He will rescue one who is not innocent, And he will be rescued due to the cleanness of your hands.”

¹How lovely are Your dwelling places, LORD of armies!

²My soul longed and even yearned for the courtyards of the LORD; My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.

³The bird also has found a house, And the swallow a nest for herself, where she may put her young: Your altars, LORD of armies, My King and my God.

⁴Blessed are those who dwell in Your house! They are ever praising You. Selah

⁵Blessed is the person whose strength is in You, In whose heart are the roads to Zion!

⁶Passing through the Valley of Baca they make it a spring; The early rain also covers it with blessings.

⁷They go from strength to strength, Every one of them appears before God in Zion.

⁸LORD God of armies, hear my prayer; Listen, God of Jacob! Selah

⁹See our shield, God, And look at the face of Your anointed.

¹⁰For a day in Your courtyards is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather stand at the threshold of the house of my God Than live in the tents of wickedness.

¹¹For the LORD God is a sun and shield; The LORD gives grace and glory; He withholds no good thing from those who walk with integrity.

¹²LORD of armies, Blessed is the person who trusts in You!

¹A good name is to be more desired than great wealth; Favor is better than silver and gold.

²The rich and the poor have a common bond, The LORD is the Maker of them all.

³A prudent person sees evil and hides himself, But the naive proceed, and pay the penalty.

⁴The reward of humility and the fear of the LORD Are riches, honor, and life.

⁵Thorns and snares are in the way of the perverse; One who guards himself will be far from them.

⁶Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he grows older he will not abandon it.

⁷The rich rules over the poor, And the borrower becomes the lender’s slave.

⁸One who sows injustice will reap disaster, And the rod of his fury will perish.

⁹One who is generous will be blessed, Because he gives some of his food to the poor.

¹⁰Drive out the scoffer, and strife will leave, Even quarreling and dishonor will cease.

¹¹One who loves purity of heart And whose speech is gracious, the king is his friend.

¹²The eyes of the LORD protect knowledge, But He overthrows the words of the treacherous person.

¹³The lazy one says, “There is a lion outside; I will be killed in the streets!”

¹⁴The mouth of an adulteress is a deep pit; He who is cursed of the LORD will fall into it.

¹⁵Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of discipline will remove it far from him.

¹⁶One who oppresses the poor to make more for himself, Or gives to the rich, will only come to poverty.

¹⁷Extend your ear and hear the words of the wise, And apply your mind to my knowledge;

¹⁸For it will be pleasant if you keep them within you, So that they may be ready on your lips.

¹⁹So that your trust may be in the LORD, I have taught you today, you indeed.

²⁰Have I not written to you excellent things Of counsels and knowledge,

²¹To make you know the certainty of the words of truth, So that you may correctly answer him who sent you?

²²Do not rob the poor because he is poor, Nor crush the needy at the gate;

²³For the LORD will plead their case And take the life of those who rob them.

²⁴Do not make friends with a person given to anger, Or go with a hot-tempered person,

²⁵Or you will learn his ways And find a snare for yourself.

²⁶Do not be among those who shake hands, Among those who become guarantors for debts.

²⁷If you have nothing with which to repay, Why should he take your bed from under you?

²⁸Do not move the ancient boundary Which your fathers have set.

²⁹Do you see a person skilled in his work? He will stand before kings; He will not stand before obscure people.

¹Now when Ish-bosheth, Saul’s son, heard that Abner had died in Hebron, his courage failed, and all Israel was horrified.

²And Saul’s son had two men who were commanders of troops: the name of the one was Baanah, and the name of the other Rechab, sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, of the sons of Benjamin (for Beeroth is also considered part of Benjamin,

³and the Beerothites fled to Gittaim and have lived there as strangers until this day).

⁴Now Jonathan, Saul’s son, had a son who was disabled in both feet. He was five years old when the news of Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel, and his nurse picked him up and fled. But it happened that in her hurry to flee, he fell and could no longer walk. And his name was Mephibosheth.

⁵So the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, Rechab and Baanah, departed and came to the house of Ish-bosheth in the heat of the day, while he was taking his midday rest.

⁶And they came to the interior of the house as if to get wheat, and they struck him in the belly; and Rechab and his brother Baanah escaped.

⁷Now when they had come into the house, as he was lying on his bed in his bedroom, they struck him and killed him, and they beheaded him. And they took his head and traveled by way of the Arabah all night.

⁸Then they brought the head of Ish-bosheth to David at Hebron, and said to the king, “Behold, the head of Ish-bosheth the son of Saul, your enemy, who sought your life; so the LORD has given my lord the king vengeance this day on Saul and his descendants.”

⁹But David replied to Rechab and his brother Baanah, sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, and said to them, “As the LORD lives, who has redeemed my life from all distress,

¹⁰when the one who informed me, saying, ‘Behold, Saul is dead,’ also viewed himself as the bearer of good news, I seized him and killed him in Ziklag, which was the reward I gave him for his news.

¹¹How much more, when wicked men have killed a righteous man in his own house on his bed, shall I not now require his blood from your hands and eliminate you both from the earth?”

¹²Then David commanded the young men, and they killed them and cut off their hands and feet, and hung them up beside the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ish-bosheth and buried it in the grave of Abner in Hebron.

¹The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,

²“Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will announce My words to you.”

³So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something on the wheel.

⁴But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make.

⁵Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

⁶“Am I not able, house of Israel, to deal with you as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, house of Israel.

⁷At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot it, to tear it down, or to destroy it;

⁸if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I planned to bring on it.

⁹Or at another moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to build up or to plant it;

¹⁰if it does evil in My sight by not obeying My voice, then I will relent of the good with which I said that I would bless it.

¹¹So now, speak to the men of Judah and against the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, ‘This is what the LORD says: “Behold, I am forming a disaster against you and devising a plan against you. Now turn back, each of you from his evil way, and correct your ways and your deeds!” ’

¹²But they will say, ‘It’s hopeless! For we are going to follow our own plans, and each of us will persist in the stubbornness of his evil heart.’

¹³“Therefore this is what the LORD says: ‘Just ask among the nations, Who ever heard anything like this? The virgin of Israel Has done a most appalling thing.

¹⁴Does the snow of Lebanon leave the rock of the open country alone? Or is the cold flowing water from a foreign land ever dried up?

¹⁵For My people have forgotten Me, They burn incense to worthless gods. And they have stumbled in their ways, In the ancient roads, To walk on paths, Not on a highway,

¹⁶To make their land a desolation, An object of perpetual hissing; Everyone who passes by it will be astonished And shake his head.

¹⁷Like an east wind I will scatter them Before the enemy; I will show them My back and not My face In the day of their disaster.’ ”

¹⁸Then they said, “Come and let’s devise plans against Jeremiah. Certainly the Law is not going to be lost by the priest, nor advice by the wise, nor the divine word by the prophet! Come, and let’s strike at him with our tongue, and let’s pay no attention to any of his words.”

¹⁹Give Your attention to me, LORD, And listen to what my opponents are saying!

²⁰Should good be repaid with evil? For they have dug a pit for me. Remember how I stood before You To speak good in their behalf, So as to turn Your wrath away from them.

²¹Therefore, give their children over to famine And turn them over to the power of the sword; And let their wives become childless and widowed. Let their men also be slaughtered to death, Their young men struck and killed by the sword in battle.

²²May a cry be heard from their houses When You suddenly bring raiders upon them; For they have dug a pit to capture me And hidden snares for my feet.

²³But You, LORD, know All their deadly schemes against me; Do not forgive their wrongdoing Or wipe out their sin from Your sight. But may they be overthrown before You; Deal with them in the time of Your anger!

¹When they had been brought safely through, then we found out that the island was called Malta.

²The natives showed us extraordinary kindness, for they kindled a fire and took us all in because of the rain that had started and because of the cold.

³But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened itself on his hand.

⁴When the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they began saying to one another, “Undoubtedly this man is a murderer, and though he has been saved from the sea, justice has not allowed him to live.”

⁵However, Paul shook the creature off into the fire and suffered no harm.

⁶Now they were expecting that he was going to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But after they had waited a long time and had seen nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and began to say that he was a god.

⁷Now in the neighboring parts of that place were lands belonging to the leading man of the island, named Publius, who welcomed us and entertained us warmly for three days.

⁸And it happened that the father of Publius was lying in bed afflicted with a recurring fever and dysentery. Paul went in to see him, and after he prayed, he laid his hands on him and healed him.

⁹After this happened, the rest of the people on the island who had diseases were coming to him and being cured.

¹⁰They also showed us many honors, and when we were about to set sail, they supplied us with everything we needed.

¹¹After three months we set sail on an Alexandrian ship which had wintered at the island, and which had the Twin Brothers for its figurehead.

¹²After we put in at Syracuse, we stayed there for three days.

¹³From there we sailed around and arrived at Rhegium, and a day later a south wind came up, and on the second day we came to Puteoli.

¹⁴There we found some brothers and sisters, and were invited to stay with them for seven days; and that is how we came to Rome.

¹⁵And from there the brothers and sisters, when they heard about us, came as far as the Market of Appius and the Three Inns to meet us; and when Paul saw them, he thanked God and took courage.

¹⁶When we entered Rome, Paul was allowed to stay by himself, with the soldier who was guarding him.

¹⁷After three days Paul called together those who were the leading men of the Jews, and when they came together, he began saying to them, “Brothers, though I had done nothing against our people or the customs of our fathers, yet I was handed over to the Romans as a prisoner from Jerusalem.

¹⁸And when they had examined me, they were willing to release me because there were no grounds for putting me to death.

¹⁹But when the Jews objected, I was forced to appeal to Caesar, not that I had any accusation against my nation.

²⁰For this reason, therefore, I requested to see you and to speak with you, since I am wearing this chain for the sake of the hope of Israel.”

²¹They said to him, “We have neither received letters from Judea concerning you, nor has any of the brothers come here and reported or spoken anything bad about you.

²²But we desire to hear from you what your views are; for regarding this sect, it is known to us that it is spoken against everywhere.”

²³When they had set a day for Paul, people came to him at his lodging in large numbers; and he was explaining to them by solemnly testifying about the kingdom of God and trying to persuade them concerning Jesus, from both the Law of Moses and from the Prophets, from morning until evening.

²⁴Some were being persuaded by the things said by Paul, but others would not believe.

²⁵And when they disagreed with one another, they began leaving after Paul said one parting statement: “The Holy Spirit rightly spoke through Isaiah the prophet to your fathers,

²⁶saying, ‘GO TO THIS PEOPLE AND SAY, “YOU WILL KEEP ON HEARING, AND WILL NOT UNDERSTAND; AND YOU WILL KEEP ON SEEING, AND WILL NOT PERCEIVE;

²⁷FOR THE HEARTS OF THIS PEOPLE HAVE BECOME INSENSITIVE, AND WITH THEIR EARS THEY HARDLY HEAR, AND THEY HAVE CLOSED THEIR EYES; OTHERWISE THEY MIGHT SEE WITH THEIR EYES, AND HEAR WITH THEIR EARS, AND UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART AND RETURN, AND I WOULD HEAL THEM.” ’

²⁸Therefore, let it be known to you that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will also listen.”

²⁹

³⁰Now Paul stayed two full years in his own rented lodging and welcomed all who came to him,

³¹preaching the kingdom of God and teaching things about the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness, unhindered.