Acts
After the uproar had stopped, Paul sent for the disciples, and after
encouraging them he said goodbye and departed for Macedonia.
He passed through that region and spoke many encouraging words to the believers there, and
then went on to Greece.
When he had spent three months there, a plot was
made against him by the Jews as he was intending to set sail for Syria, so he
decided to return through Macedonia.
He was accompanied by Sopater from
Berea, the son of Pyrrhus; Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessalonica;
Gaius from Derbe; Timothy; and Tychicus and Trophimus from the province
of Asia.
These had gone on ahead and were waiting for us at Troas.
After the
days of Unleavened Bread we sailed from Philippi, and met them five days
later in Troas, where we stayed seven days.
On the first day of the week
when we gathered together to break
bread, Paul began to speak to the people, intending to depart the next day, and
continued his speech until midnight.
There were many lamps in the upstairs
room where we were meeting.
A young man named Eutychus was sitting in
the window and began to sink into a deep sleep. As Paul kept on talking he
was overcome by sleep and fell down from the third floor and was picked up dead.
But Paul went down and fell upon him, and embracing him said,
“Do not be troubled. He is still alive.”
Paul went back upstairs, broke bread
and ate, and talked with them a long while, even until daybreak, and then he
departed.
They took the young man home alive, and were greatly
comforted.
After going on ahead to the ship we set sail for Assos, intending to take Paul
aboard there. He had arranged this, intending to go there by land.
When he met us
at Assos we took him aboard and went to Mitylene.
Sailing from there we
came the next day offshore from Chios, and the next day we approached Samos,
and the following day we arrived at Miletus.
Paul had determined to sail
past Ephesus and not spend time in the province of Asia,
because he was in a hurry to reach Jerusalem, if possible, by the day of
Pentecost.
From Miletus he sent word to Ephesus and summoned the elders of the
church.
When they came he said to them, “You yourselves know, from
the first day I set foot in the province of Asia, the way I lived the whole
time I was with you,
serving the Lord with all humility, with many tears, and with the troubles
brought on me by the plots of the Jews.
I did not hold back from declaring to
you anything that was profitable, teaching you publicly and from house to
house.
I testified to both Jews and Gentiles about repentance towards God and faith in our lord
Jesus Messiah.
Now I am going, compelled by the spirit,
to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there.
All I know is that
in every town the holy spirit testifies to me that prison and troubles await
me.
But I consider my life worth nothing to me, so that I may finish my task
and the ministry which I received from the lord Jesus: to testify to the Gospel
of the grace of God.
Now I know that you all, among whom I went around
heralding the Gospel of the Kingdom,
will see me no more.
So then
I testify to you today, I am innocent of the blood of all of you,
because I have
not held back from declaring to you the whole plan of God.
“Be alert for yourselves and for all the flock, in which the holy spirit has
made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He acquired with
the blood of His own Son.
I know that after my departure savage wolves
will come in among you, not sparing the flock.
Even from among your own
number men will arise who will pervert the truth in order to draw away the
disciples after them.
So be on guard! Do not forget that for a period of three
years I never ceased to warn every one of you, night and day, with tears.
And now I entrust you to God and to the Gospel-word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you the inheritance among all those who are holy.
I
have desired no one’s silver, gold or clothing.
You yourselves know that
these hands of mine provided for my own needs, as well as the needs of those who were
with me.
In everything I did, I showed you that laboring in this way we ought to help the weak, and remember the words of the lord Jesus when he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”
When he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all.
They all wept freely and hugged Paul and kissed him.
They were
especially sad because of what he had said about seeing him no more.
Then they accompanied him to the ship.
Acts