Study Desk

So they dropped a plumbline and found the water one hundred and twenty feet deep. A little farther on, they took another sounding and found it ninety feet.

Therefore I advise you to take some food; you need it for your own survival. For not one of you will lose so much as a hair from his head."

So they cut away the anchors and left them in the sea; at the same time, they loosened the ropes that held the rudders out of the water. Then they hoisted the foresail to the wind and headed for the beach.

At this point the soldiers' thought was to kill the prisoners, so that none of them would swim off and escape.

Its people showed extraordinary kindness — it was cold and it had started to rain, so they lit a bonfire and welcomed us all.

Now it so happened that Publius' father was lying in bed, sick with fever attacks and dysentery. Sha'ul went in to him, prayed, placed his hands on him and healed him.

From there, we arrived at Rhegium by tacking; but after one day, a south wind sprang up; so we made it to Puteoli the second day.

There we found brothers who invited us to spend a week with them. And so we went on toward Rome.

So they arranged a day with him and came to his quarters in large numbers. From morning until evening he explained the matter to them, giving a thorough witness about the Kingdom of God and making use of both the Torah of Moshe and the Prophets to persuade them about Yeshua.

while others refused to believe. So they left, disagreeing among themselves, after Sha'ul had made one final statement: "The Ruach HaKodesh spoke well in saying to your fathers through Yesha‘yahu the prophet,

because the heart of this people has grown thick — with their ears they barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, for fear that they should see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart, and do t'shuvah, so that I could heal them."'

For I long to see you, so that I might share with you some spiritual gift that can make you stronger —

or, to put it another way, so that by my being with you, we might, through the faith we share, encourage one another.

Brothers, I want you to know that although I have been prevented from visiting you until now, I have often planned to do so, in order that I might have some fruit among you, just as I have among the other Gentiles.

This is why God has given them up to degrading passions; so that their women exchange natural sexual relations for unnatural;

In other words, since they have not considered God worth knowing, God has given them up to worthless ways of thinking; so that they do improper things.

On the contrary, the real Jew is one inwardly; and true circumcision is of the heart, spiritual not literal; so that his praise comes not from other people but from God.

If some of them were unfaithful, so what? Does their faithlessness cancel God's faithfulness?

Heaven forbid! God would be true even if everyone were a liar! — as the Tanakh says, "so that you, God, may be proved right in your words and win the verdict when you are put on trial."

Indeed! Why not say (as some people slander us by claiming we do say), "Let us do evil, so that good may come of it"? Against them the judgment is a just one!