Study Desk

But when her owners saw their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities.

After they had beaten them severely, they threw them into prison and commanded the jailer to guard them securely.

They replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household."

But Paul said to the police officers, "They had us beaten in public without a proper trial—even though we are Roman citizens—and they threw us in prison. And now they want to send us away secretly? Absolutely not! They themselves must come and escort us out!"

The police officers reported these words to the magistrates. They were frightened when they heard Paul and Silas were Roman citizens

and came and apologized to them. After they brought them out, they asked them repeatedly to leave the city.

When they came out of the prison, they entered Lydia's house, and when they saw the brothers, they encouraged them and then departed.

After they traveled through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue.

But the Jews became jealous, and gathering together some worthless men from the rabble in the marketplace, they formed a mob and set the city in an uproar. They attacked Jason's house, trying to find Paul and Silas to bring them out to the assembly.

When they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city officials, screaming, "These people who have stirred up trouble throughout the world have come here too,

and Jason has welcomed them as guests! They are all acting against Caesar's decrees, saying there is another king named Jesus!"

They caused confusion among the crowd and the city officials who heard these things.

After the city officials had received bail from Jason and the others, they released them.

The brothers sent Paul and Silas off to Berea at once, during the night. When they arrived, they went to the Jewish synagogue.

But when the Jews from Thessalonica heard that Paul had also proclaimed the word of God in Berea, they came there too, inciting and disturbing the crowds.

Those who accompanied Paul escorted him as far as Athens, and after receiving an order for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible, they left.

Also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him, and some were asking, "What does this foolish babbler want to say?" Others said, "He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods." (They said this because he was proclaiming the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.)

So they took Paul and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are proclaiming?

From one man he made every nation of the human race to inhabit the entire earth, determining their set times and the fixed limits of the places where they would live,

so that they would search for God and perhaps grope around for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.