Acts 21

EasyEnglish Bible

Paul goes to Jerusalem

21 We said ‘goodbye’ to the leaders of the believers from Ephesus. Then we went on a ship straight across the sea, and we arrived at Cos. The next day, we continued on our journey to Rhodes. From there we went to the town of Patara.^[a]

² At Patara, we found a ship that was going to Phoenicia. So we got onto the ship and we sailed across the sea.

³ After travelling for some time, we could see the island called Cyprus. We went south of Cyprus, and we continued as far as Syria. We arrived on the coast at the city of Tyre and we got off the ship. The ship would remain in Tyre for some days, because people had to remove the things off the ship. ⁴ We found some believers in the city. So we stayed with them for a week. The Holy Spirit showed these believers that trouble would come to Paul in Jerusalem. So they said to him, ‘Paul, you should not to go to Jerusalem.’

⁵ After a week with the believers in Tyre, it was time for us to leave them. All the believers, together with their wives and their children, went with us out of the city. At the beach, we all went down on our knees and we prayed together. ⁶ Then we said ‘goodbye’ to each other and the believers returned to their homes in the city. We went and we got on the ship again, together with Paul.

⁷ We continued our journey across the sea. We sailed from Tyre to Ptolemais. There, we met some believers and we stayed with them for one day. ⁸ The next day, we left Ptolemais and we sailed to Caesarea. We stayed there with Philip. He was someone who taught people the good news about Jesus. He was one of the seven men that the believers had chosen in Jerusalem.^{[b] 9} He had four daughters who were not married. They spoke messages from God.

¹⁰ We stayed with Philip in Caesarea for a few days. Then a man called Agabus arrived in the city from Judea. He was a prophet and he spoke messages from God. ¹¹ Agabus came to where we were. He took Paul's belt and he tied it around his own feet and hands. He said, ‘Listen to this message from the Holy Spirit. “The Jewish leaders in Jerusalem will take hold of the man who has this belt. They will tie his hands and his feet. Then they will give him to the Gentiles to be their prisoner.” ’

¹² When we heard Agabus's message, we all said many times to Paul, ‘Please do not go to Jerusalem.’ ¹³ But Paul answered, ‘Stop crying like this! You are making me very sad! I am ready for men in Jerusalem to take hold of me. They may tie me up, and I may even die there. I am ready for all this because I believe in the Lord Jesus.’

¹⁴ We could not cause Paul to think in a different way. So we stopped saying to him, ‘You should not go to Jerusalem.’ Instead we said to him, ‘We want the Lord God to do what he wants.’

¹⁵ We stayed in Caesarea for a few days. Then we prepared ourselves to travel across land. We left there to go to Jerusalem. ¹⁶ Some of the believers from Caesarea also went with us. They took us to the house of a man called Mnason. We had decided to stay with him. His home town was on the island called Cyprus. He had been a believer for a long time.

Paul visits James in Jerusalem

¹⁷ When we arrived in Jerusalem, the believers there were very happy to welcome us. ¹⁸ The next day, we went with Paul to see James. The leaders of the believers were also there. ¹⁹ Paul said, ‘hello’ to them and then he told them everything about his work. God had helped him to do many good things for the Gentiles.

²⁰ After the leaders had listened to Paul, they praised God. Then they said, ‘Brother Paul, you can see the problem. There are now many thousands of Jews who have believed in Jesus. But they also really want to obey the Law of Moses.^{[c] 21} These Jews here have heard about what you teach Jewish people in other countries. They think that you say to them, “You do not need to obey the Law of Moses any longer. You do not need to circumcise your children. You do not need to live in the way that Jewish people usually live.”

²² We need to do something about this problem. These Jewish believers will certainly hear that you are in Jerusalem. ²³ We will tell you what you must do. There are four Jewish men in our group who have made a promise to God. ²⁴ You must go with these men to the temple. There, they will wash to make themselves clean in front of God. Join with them when they do that. Then pay the priest the money for their sacrifices. After that, the men can cut the hair off their heads. When you do that, everyone will understand about you. They will see what you have done. They will know that you yourself obey the Law of Moses. They will know that what they have heard about you is not true. ²⁵ But it is different for the Gentiles who believe in Jesus. We have already sent a letter to them. We wrote, “Do not eat any food that people have given to their idols. Do not eat anything that still has blood in it. If people have strangled an animal to kill it, do not eat its meat. Do not have sex with anyone that you are not married to.” ’

²⁶ So the next day, Paul went with the four men. He joined with them when they washed to make themselves clean in front of God. Then he went into the yard of the temple. He told the priest there when the four men would finish their promise to God. This would be after seven days. After that, each man would give an animal as a sacrifice to God.^[d]

²⁷ At the end of those seven days, some Jews from Asia region saw Paul in the temple. They said some bad things against Paul to the crowd. So the people became angry and they took hold of Paul. ²⁸ The Jews from Asia shouted, ‘People of Israel, come and help us! This is the man who goes everywhere and he teaches everyone bad things. He speaks against us, the people of Israel. He also speaks against the Law of Moses and against this temple. Now he has even brought some Gentiles into this temple. So now this special place is not clean in front of God any longer.’

²⁹ (These men had earlier seen Paul in the city with a man called Trophimus. Trophimus was a Gentile who came from Ephesus. They thought that Paul had brought Trophimus into the temple. That is why they shouted bad things against Paul.)^[e]

³⁰ Many other people in the city heard about the trouble and they also became angry. They all ran from their homes to the temple and they took hold of Paul. Then they pulled him out of the temple and they closed the doors immediately.^[f]

³¹ The angry crowd was trying to kill Paul. But someone sent a message to the leader of the Roman soldiers. The message was, ‘People are fighting everywhere in the city.’

³² So the soldiers' leader quickly took some other officers and a large group of soldiers and they ran down to the crowd. The angry crowd of people saw the leader with his soldiers. So then they stopped hitting Paul.

³³ The Roman soldiers' leader went to Paul and he took hold of him. He said to his men, ‘Tie two chains round the arms of this man.’ Then he asked the people in the crowd, ‘Who is this man and what has he done?’

³⁴ Some people in the crowd shouted one thing and other people shouted something different. There was so much noise that the leader of the soldiers was not sure about the true facts. He did not know what had really happened. So he said to his soldiers, ‘Take this man up into our strong building!’ ³⁵ The soldiers then led Paul as far as the steps of their building. Then they had to carry him because the crowd was so angry. ³⁶ The crowd followed behind Paul and the soldiers. They were shouting, ‘Kill him!’

³⁷ While the soldiers were leading Paul into their building, he asked their leader, ‘Please may I say something to you?’

The soldiers' leader replied, ‘Oh! Do you speak the Greek language? ³⁸ I thought that you must be that bad man who came from Egypt. He was the one who fought against our Roman government. Some time ago, he led 4,000 of his own men out into the wilderness, with their weapons.’

³⁹ Paul answered, ‘I am a Jew and I was born in Tarsus in the region called Cilicia. So you see, I am a man from an important city. Please, let me speak to this crowd.’

⁴⁰ The leader of the soldiers said to Paul, ‘Yes, you may speak to the people.’ So Paul stood still on the steps of the soldiers' building. He raised his hands towards them so that the people became quiet. Then he spoke to them in Aramaic, the Jewish people's own language.