Acts 25:14

But Festus, desiring to gain favor with the Jews, answered Paul and said, “Are you willing to go up to Jerusalem, and be judged by me there concerning these things?”

When he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. This was during the days of unleavened bread.

He asked them to provide animals, that they might set Paul on one, and bring him safely to Felix the governor.

“Claudius Lysias to the most excellent governor Felix: Greetings.

When the governor had beckoned to him to speak, Paul answered, “Because I know that you have been a judge of this nation for many years, I cheerfully make my defense,

But when two years were fulfilled, Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus, and desiring to gain favor with the Jews, Felix left Paul in bonds.

Festus therefore, having come into the province, after three days went up to Jerusalem from Caesarea.

But by the grace of God I am what I am. His grace which was given to me was not futile, but I worked more than all of them; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

For I will show him how many things he must suffer for my name’s sake.”

who also made us sufficient as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Jeremiah commanded Baruch, saying, “I am restricted. I can’t go into Yahweh’s house.

But Jeremiah said, “They won’t deliver you. Obey, I beg you, Yahweh’s voice, in that which I speak to you; so it will be well with you, and your soul will live.

Pilate, wishing to please the multitude, released Barabbas to them, and handed over Jesus, when he had flogged him, to be crucified.

Then the commanding officer came near, arrested him, commanded him to be bound with two chains, and inquired who he was and what he had done.

After five days, the high priest, Ananias, came down with certain elders and an orator, one Tertullus. They informed the governor against Paul.

Agrippa said to Festus, “This man might have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar.”

For this cause therefore I asked to see you and to speak with you. For because of the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain.”

Who then is Apollos, and who is Paul, but servants through whom you believed, and each as the Lord gave to him?

Yet I wish that all men were like me. However each man has his own gift from God, one of this kind, and another of that kind.

as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and not killed;

in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, and in cold and nakedness.

and the children of Israel said to them, “We wish that we had died by Yahweh’s hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots, when we ate our fill of bread, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

“You shall not follow a crowd to do evil. You shall not testify in court to side with a multitude to pervert justice.

Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all Yahweh’s people were prophets, that Yahweh would put his Spirit on them!”

The king was much moved, and went up to the room over the gate, and wept. As he went, he said, “My son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! I wish I had died for you, Absalom, my son, my son!”

She said to her mistress, “I wish that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! Then he would heal him of his leprosy.”

and say, ‘The king says, “Put this fellow in the prison, and feed him with bread of affliction and with water of affliction, until I return in peace.” ’ ”

I arose in the night, I and a few men with me. I didn’t tell anyone what my God put into my heart to do for Jerusalem. There wasn’t any animal with me, except the animal that I rode on.

My soul is continually in my hand, yet I won’t forget your law.

But you will be called Yahweh’s priests. Men will call you the servants of our God. You will eat the wealth of the nations. You will boast in their glory.

But if you will not hear it, my soul will weep in secret for your pride. My eye will weep bitterly, and run down with tears, because Yahweh’s flock has been taken captive.

Put on sackcloth and mourn, you priests! Wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, for the meal offering and the drink offering are withheld from your God’s house.

But he who is greatest among you will be your servant.

and they bound him, and led him away, and delivered him up to Pontius Pilate, the governor.

They were exceedingly astonished, saying to him, “Then who can be saved?”

Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene,

came to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. He set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

But the testimony which I receive is not from man. However, I say these things that you may be saved.

and laid hands on the apostles, then put them in public custody.

When Peter had come to himself, he said, “Now I truly know that the Lord has sent out his angel and delivered me out of the hand of Herod, and from everything the Jewish people were expecting.”

But some Jews from Antioch and Iconium came there, and having persuaded the multitudes, they stoned Paul, and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead.

except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions wait for me.

Coming to us and taking Paul’s belt, he bound his own feet and hands, and said, “The Holy Spirit says: ‘So the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt, and will deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.’ ”

But on the next day, desiring to know the truth about why he was accused by the Jews, he freed him from the bonds, and commanded the chief priests and all the council to come together, and brought Paul down and set him before them.

“I will hear you fully when your accusers also arrive.” He commanded that he be kept in Herod’s palace.

Agrippa said to Paul, “With a little persuasion are you trying to make me a Christian?”

Paul said, “I pray to God, that whether with little or with much, not only you, but also all that hear me today, might become such as I am, except for these bonds.”

When it was determined that we should sail for Italy, they delivered Paul and certain other prisoners to a centurion named Julius, of the Augustan band.

But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat, and fastened on his hand.

When we entered into Rome, the centurion delivered the prisoners to the captain of the guard, but Paul was allowed to stay by himself with the soldier who guarded him.

Paul stayed two whole years in his own rented house and received all who were coming to him,

Even as it is written, “For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

Brothers, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God is for Israel, that they may be saved.

that I should be a servant of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, serving as a priest of the Good News of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be made acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives and my fellow prisoners, who are notable among the apostles, who were also in Christ before me.

So let a man think of us as Christ’s servants, and stewards of God’s mysteries.

You are already filled. You have already become rich. You have come to reign without us. Yes, and I wish that you did reign, that we also might reign with you.

I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.

but in everything commending ourselves, as servants of God, in great endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in distresses,

in beatings, in imprisonments, in riots, in labors, in watchings, in fastings;

Do you look at things only as they appear in front of your face? If anyone trusts in himself that he is Christ’s, let him consider this again with himself, that even as he is Christ’s, so we also are Christ’s.

I wish that you would bear with me in a little foolishness, but indeed you do bear with me.

It is no great thing therefore if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.

Are they servants of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself.) I am more so: in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, and in deaths often.

For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? For if I were still pleasing men, I wouldn’t be a servant of Christ.

For this cause I, Paul, am the prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles,

I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to walk worthily of the calling with which you were called,

for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.

so that it became evident to the whole palace guard, and to all the rest, that my bonds are in Christ,

Yes, and if I am poured out on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice, and rejoice with you all.

even as you learned of Epaphras our beloved fellow servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on your behalf,

if it is so that you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the Good News which you heard, which is being proclaimed in all creation under heaven, of which I, Paul, was made a servant.

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the assembly,

for which I also labor, striving according to his working, which works in me mightily.

If you instruct the brothers of these things, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, nourished in the words of the faith, and of the good doctrine which you have followed.

Therefore don’t be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner; but endure hardship for the Good News according to the power of God,

May the Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain,

in which I suffer hardship to the point of chains as a criminal. But God’s word isn’t chained.

yet for love’s sake I rather beg, being such a one as Paul, the aged, but also a prisoner of Jesus Christ.

For you both had compassion on me in my chains, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your possessions, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and an enduring one in the heavens.

Others were tried by mocking and scourging, yes, moreover by bonds and imprisonment.

You have perseverance and have endured for my name’s sake, and have not grown weary.