Therefore I testify to you, upon this very day, that I am clean of the blood of all of you; for I never gave up announcing all God's will to you. Take heed, then, for yourselves and for all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has set you as guardians, to be shepherds of the church of God which he brought about with his own blood. I know that after I leave you, fierce wolves will come among you who will not spare the flock; and men from your own number will rise up and speak perversely, to pull the disciples into their own following. Therefore be watchful, remembering how for three years I never ceased, night and day, from counseling each one of you, with tears. And now I give you into the charge of the Lord and the word of his grace, which has power to restore you and give you your inheritance among all who have been consecrated. I never wanted anyone's silver or gold or clothing; you yourselves know that these hands of mine provided for my needs and for my companions. I have always shown you that thus you should toil to help those who are weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus Christ which he himself spoke: It is more blessed to give than to receive.
So saying, he knelt with all of them and prayed. And there was much lamentation by all, and they fell on Paul's neck and kissed him. What had grieved them the most was when he said that they would never see his face again. And they escorted him to his ship.
IWhen we had to tear ourselves away from them and put out to sea, we made a straight to Cos, and on the next day to Rhodes, and from there to Patara; and finding there a ship that was crossing to Phoenicia we went aboard and sailed. After sighting Cyprus and leaving it behind on the left, we sailed to Syria and came ashore at Tyre, for it was there that the ship unloaded her cargo. We found the disciples and stayed there seven days; and they warned Paul, because of what the Spirit had told them, not to go on to Jerusalem. But when we had come to the end of our days there, we left and started on our way, and they all escorted us, with their wives and children, outside the city; and we all knelt down on the beach and prayed and said our farewells; and then we boarded the ship, and they t^ned back to their homes.
We ended our sea voyage from Tyre by reaching Pto- lemais, and there we greeted the brothers and stayed with them for a day. And on the next day we set forth and reached Caesarea and went to the house of Philip the evangelist, one of the seven, and stayed with him. He had four maiden daughters, who were prophetic. After we had stayed there for a number of days, there came down from Judaea a prophet named Agabas, who came up to us and took off Paul's belt and bound his own feet and his hands, saying: Thus says the Holy Spirit. The Jews will thus bind the man, whose belt this is, in Jerusalem, and they will give him over into the hands of the heathens. When we heard this, we, together with the people who lived there, implored him not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered: Why are you doing this, crying and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound but to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. So when he would not be persuaded we held our peace, saying: The Lord's will be done.
After these days we made our preparations and went up to Jerusalem; and some of the disciples from Caesarea went with us and took us where we could be the guests of a certain Mnason of Cyprus, a disciple of long standing, and when we arrived in Jerusalem the brothers welcomed us gladly. On the next day Paul went with us to the house of James, and all the elders were there. And Paul greeted them and recounted to them one by one all the things that God had made happen among the Gentiles through his ministry. When they heard, they glorified God; but they said to Pauclass="underline" You can see, brother, how many tens of thousands there are among the Jews who have come to believe; and all of them are zealots for the law. And they have been told concerning you that you are teaching all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children and not to follow his customs.
What to do, then? They will surely learn that you are here. So do as we tell you, thus. There are four men among us who have taken a vow, of their own free will. Take them along with you and be purified along with them, and pay their expenses so that they can shave their heads; and all will realize that what they were told about you is not true, but you also hold to serving the law. Concerning the Gentiles who have come to believe, we have sent word decreeing that they must keep themselves from idol offerings, and blood, and what has been strangled, and lechery.
Then on the next day Paul took the men with him, and was purified along with them and entered the temple, giving notice of the time when the days of purification would be completed, at which time the offering should be made for each one of them. But when the seven days were about to be completed, the Jews from Asia, who had seen him in the temple, stirred up the whole populace, and they laid hands on him, shouting: Men of Jerusalem, help us. This is the man who teaches all men everywhere, going against the people and the law and this place; and now he has even brought Greeks into the temple and profaned this holy place. For they had previously seen Trophimus of Ephesus with him in the city, and they thought Paul had brought him into the temple. The whole city was aroused, and the people made a rush and seized Paul and dragged him out of the temple; and immediately the doors were shut. And as they were demanding his death, word got to the tribune of the Roman cohort that all Jerusalem was rioting; and he, taking with him his soldiers and their centurions, ran at once to where they were, and when they saw the tribune and the soldiers they stopped beating Paul. Then the tribune went to Paul and seized him and ordered him to be bound with double chains, and asked who he was and what he had done. Some in the crowd said one thing and some said another. And when the tribune could not find out for sure because of the uproar, he ordered him to be taken into the barracks. But when he got to the steps, he had to be carried by the soldiers, because of the violence of the mob, for most of the population followed him crying: Kill him.
When he was about to be taken into the barracks, Paul said to the tribune: May I say something to you? He said: You know Greek? Then you are not that Egyptian who started a riot some days ago and went off into the desert with four thousand of the assassins? Paul said: I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no insignificant city; and I request of you, give me leave to speak to the people. When he gave him leave, Paul stood on the steps and motioned with his hand to the people; and when there was mostly silence, he spoke to them in Hebrew, saying:
1 Brothers, fathers, listen to the defense I make before you now. And when they heard him speaking to them in Hebrew they were the more quiet. And he said: I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, and brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, instructed in the strict style of the law of our fathers, and I was a zealot for God as all of you are today. I persecuted this Way to the death, binding men and women and delivering them to the prisons, as the high priest and the entire council of elders will testify. From them I received letters to the brothers in Damascus and I was on my way to bring those who were there in bonds to Jerusalem to be punished. And it befell me that as I was on my way and approaching Damascus, about noon, a great light from the sky suddenly flashed about me, and I fell to the ground and I heard a voice saying: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? And I answered: Who are you, Lord? And he said to me: I am Jesus of Nazareth; whom you persecute. And the men who were with me saw the light but they did not hear the voice which spoke to me. And I said: What shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said to me: Rise up and go on to Damascus, and there you will be told about all the things that you have been appointed to do.