1 While Apollos was in Corinth, it happened that Paul, after traveling through the interior, came to Ephesus, and there found some disciples and said to them: When you believed, did you receive the Holy Spirit? They said: We have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit. Paul said: Then in what were you baptized? They answered: In the baptism of John. Paul said: John baptized in the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was coming after him, that is, in Jesus. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus; and after Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came over them, and they began to speak with tongues and prophesy. There were about twelve men in all.
Then he went into the synagogue and spoke freely for three months, lecturing and arguing about the Kingdom of God. But when some men began to scoff and disbelieve, speaking ill of the Way of God before the congregation, Paul left them and took away his disciples, lecturing every day in the school of Tyrannus. And this went on for two years, so that all the inhabitants of Asia heard the word of the Lord, Jews and Greeks alike. And God displayed no ordinary powers through the hands of Paul, so that even if only handkerchiefs or towels he had touched were brought to the sick, their diseases would leave them and the evil spirits would go out of them. And some of the traveling Jewish exorcists tried n^ing the n^e of the Lord Jesus to those who possessed evil spirits, saying: I adjure you by Jesus, the one Paul preaches. There were seven sons of a certain Sceva, a Jewish high priest, who did this. But the evil spirit answered and said to them: Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you? And the man who had been controlled by the evil spirit leaped upon these men and overpowered and defeated them so that they fled from the house naked and bleeding. This became known to all the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, and fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was exalted. And many of those who had come to believe began confessing and reporting their magical practices, and a number of those who had been practicing magic brought their books together into one place and burned them in the sight of all; and they counted the value of these and found that they came to fifty thousand pieces of silver. Thus powerfully did the word of the Lord grow and gain strength.
After these matters were concluded, Paul took it into his mind to make a tour through Macedonia and Achaea and go on to Jerusalem, sa^ng: After I have been there,
I must also see Rome. Then he sent off two of his assistants, Timothy and Erastus, to Macedonia, and himself stayed for some time in Asia.
And at that time there arose a considerable disturbance over the Way of the Lord. For there was a certain man, Demetrius by name, a silversmith, who built shrines of Artemis and so gave considerable employment to the craftsmen. He assembled those and others who did this kind of work, and said: My men, you understand that our prosperity comes from this work; and you can see, and hear, that this man Paul has converted by his persuasion a large crowd not only in Ephesus but in almost all of Asia, saying that gods who are made by hands are not gods. This threatens not only to make our trade fall into disrepute, but also to make the temple of the great goddess Artemis be set at naught, and to put her, whom all Asia and the world worships, in danger of being brought down from her greatness. When they heard this, they were filled with anger and shouted: Great is Artemis of the Ephesians. And the whole city was filled with confusion, and they made a concerted rush to the theater, seizing and carrying along with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians and traveling companions of Paul. Paul wanted to go before the people, but the disciples would not let him; and also some of the Asiarchs who were friendly to Paul sent to him and urged him not to present himself in the theater.
Now some were shouting one thing and some another, for the meeting was in confusion, and most people did not know why they had been assembled. And some from the crowd told Alexander what to say; the Jews had pushed him forward. And Alexander, gesturing with his hand, tried to speak in defense before the people; but when they recognized that he was a Jew, a single voice c^e from them all as they shouted for something like two hours: Great is Artemis of the Ephesians. But the secretary of the city quieted the crowd and said: Men of Ephesus, what living person does not know that the city of the Ephesians is the temple keeper of the great Artemis and the image that fell from heaven? Since all that is indisputable, you should remain quiet and not do anything reckless. For you brought these men here when they had neither blasphemed against our goddess nor injured her temple. So now if Demetrius and his fellow craftsmen have anything to say against anyone, the courts are in session and the proconsuls are there, let them bring their charges. If you demand anything more, it will be settled in the regular assembly. For we are in danger of being charged with lawlessness over today; since there is no excuse we can give for this disturbance. And so saying, he closed the meeting.
After the excitement was over, Paul sent for his disciples and encouraged them and said his farewells and set off on his journey to Macedonia. And after passing through those parts and encouraging the people with much speaking, he arrived in Greece. When he had spent three months there and was about to sail to Syria, he decided to return by way of Macedonia because of a plot against him by the Jews. Along with him went Sopater the son of Pyrrhus, from Beroea, Aristarchus and Secun- dus of the Thessalonians, Gaius and Timothy of Derbe, and the Asians Tychicus and Trophimus. These went on ahead and awaited us at Troas; and we sailed from Phi- lippi after the days of Unleavened Bread, and we came to them at Troas after five days, and for seven days we remained there.
On the first day of the week when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul was discoursing, and since he intended to leave the next day, he drew out his discourse until midnight. There were plenty of lamps in the upper room where we were gathered together. But a young man named Eutychus was sitting in the window, and he fell into a deep sleep as Paul talked on at length, and overcome as he was by sleep, he fell all the way from the third story and was picked up dead. Paul went down and lay over him and embraced him, then said: Do not be alarmed, his life is there within him. Then he went up and broke bread and ate it and talked until sunrise, and then left. And they took away the boy, and he was alive; and they were greatly comforted.
We went on board the ship and sailed for Assos, intending to take Paul on board there, for so he had directed; he himself was going to go there by land. And when he met us at Assos, we took him aboard and went to Mitylene, and sailed from there, and on the next day we were off Chios; on the day after that we crossed over to Samos, and on the following day came to Miletus. For Paul had decided to bypass Ephesus so as not to lose time in Asia, since he was hastening to be in Jerusalem on the day of the Pentecost if that might be possible.
From Miletus he sent to Ephesus and summoned the elders of the church. And when they were in his presence he said to them: You know well, from the first day I set foot in Asia, what I was like all the time I was with you, serving the Lord in all humility and through the tears and trials that befell me from the plots of the Jews against me; how I never gave up doing what was to your advantage, bringing the news to you and teaching you, both in public and in your houses, attesting, to Jews and Hellenes alike, repentance and faith in our Lord Jesus. And now, behold, I am on my way to Jerusalem, in bondage to the Holy Spirit; not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me. But I do not count my life as of any great value to me, so long as I finish my course and the ministry which I accepted from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. And now, behold, I know that you will never see my face again: not any of you among whom I went about preaching the Kingdom.