She continued doing this for many days. But Paul was greatly annoyed, and turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her!” And it came out at that very moment.
But when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the market place before the authorities,
and when they had brought them to the chief magistrates, they said, “These men are throwing our city into confusion, being Jews,
The crowd rose up together against them, and the chief magistrates tore their robes off them and proceeded to order them to be beaten with rods.
When they had struck them with many blows, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to guard them securely;
and he, having received such a command, threw them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.
But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them;
and suddenly there came a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison house were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened.
When the jailer awoke and saw the prison doors opened, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped.
They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
And they spoke the word of the Lord to him together with all who were in his house.
And he took them that very hour of the night and washed their wounds, and immediately he was baptized, he and all his household.
Now when day came, the chief magistrates sent their policemen, saying, “Release those men.”
And the jailer reported these words to Paul, saying, “The chief magistrates have sent to release you. Therefore come out now and go in peace.”
The policemen reported these words to the chief magistrates. They were afraid when they heard that they were Romans,
and they came and appealed to them, and when they had brought them out, they kept begging them to leave the city.
They went out of the prison and entered the house of Lydia, and when they saw the brethren, they encouraged them and departed.
Now when they had traveled through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews.
And according to Paul’s custom, he went to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures,
explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ.”
And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, along with a large number of the God-fearing Greeks and a number of the leading women.
But the Jews, becoming jealous and taking along some wicked men from the market place, formed a mob and set the city in an uproar; and attacking the house of Jason, they were seeking to bring them out to the people.
When they did not find them, they began dragging Jason and some brethren before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have upset the world have come here also;
and Jason has welcomed them, and they all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.”
They stirred up the crowd and the city authorities who heard these things.
And when they had received a pledge from Jason and the others, they released them.
The brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews.
Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.
But when the Jews of Thessalonica found out that the word of God had been proclaimed by Paul in Berea also, they came there as well, agitating and stirring up the crowds.
Then immediately the brethren sent Paul out to go as far as the sea; and Silas and Timothy remained there.
Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols.
So he was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and in the market place every day with those who happened to be present.
And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying, “What would this idle babbler wish to say?” Others, “He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities,”--because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.
And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is which you are proclaiming?
(Now all the Athenians and the strangers visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new.)
So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects.
For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.
The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands;
and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation,
Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.
Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent,
because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”
Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, “We shall hear you again concerning this.”
But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.
And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, having recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. He came to them,
and because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them and they were working, for by trade they were tent-makers.
And he was reasoning in the synagogue every Sabbath and trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.
But when Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul began devoting himself completely to the word, solemnly testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ.
But when they resisted and blasphemed, he shook out his garments and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”
Then he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God, whose house was next to the synagogue.
New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995
For Permission to Quote information visit http://www.lockman.org by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, Calif.
All rights reserved.