Acts 16:11-38

¹¹We got on a ship and went straight to the town called Samothrace, and the next day we came to the town called Neapolis.

¹²We left the ship there and we went by road to the town called Philippi, and we stayed there for a few days. Philippi was the main town in that part of Macedonia, and a lot of Roman people lived there.

¹³On the next Saturday we went outside the town to a place near the river. We thought we might see some Jewish people meeting there to pray. Some women were there, and we sat down and talked with them.

¹⁴One woman was from the town called Thyatira, and her name was Lydia. She was a woman that respected God. Her job was to sell purple cloth. She listened carefully to the things Paul talked about, and Jesus helped her to believe in him.

¹⁵Then we baptised Lydia and her family. After that Lydia asked us to come and stay at her house. She said, “You mob know that I really believe now in Jesus, our leader, so please come and stay at my place.” She kept asking us until we agreed, so we stayed at her place.

¹⁶Another day we started to go to another place to meet with people and pray to God. There was a young woman on that road that had a bad spirit in her. That spirit showed her things that were going to happen to people. Some men made this young woman work for them with no pay. People used to pay a lot of money to her bosses, then she told those people things that will happen to them.

¹⁷That young woman saw Paul and the rest of us going on that road, and she followed us, and she kept on shouting, “Hey, these men serve the God that is the greatest of all gods. They can tell you what to do so that God will save you and not punish you.”

¹⁸She kept doing that for a lot of days. In the end Paul got upset. He turned around to the young woman and said to that bad spirit, “My boss, Jesus Christ, says, ‘Get out of her.’” Then the bad spirit came out of that young woman.

¹⁹Her bosses saw this happen and they thought, “Oh, no. Now she will not be able to tell anybody what will happen to them, and she will not get us any more money.” And her bosses were angry with Paul and Silas. They grabbed Paul and Silas and dragged them to the Roman judges in the middle of that town.

²⁰Her bosses said to the judges, “These men are making a lot of trouble for everyone in our town. They are Jews,

²¹and they are telling people to do things that our Roman law says are wrong.”

²²A lot of other people there joined those bosses and started blaming Paul and Silas. Then the Roman bosses told their soldiers, “Rip the shirts off Paul and Silas and hit them with sticks.”

²³The soldiers hit Paul and Silas really hard with sticks and then they put them in the jail. They told the boss of that jail, “Make sure Paul and Silas don’t get away.”

²⁴So the boss of that jail put them in a room that was right in the middle of that jail, and he made them sit down on the ground, then he locked their ankles between 2 big logs so that Paul and Silas couldn’t move their legs.

²⁵Later, in the middle of the night, Paul and Silas were praying aloud to God and saying that he is really good, and they were singing songs to God. The other prisoners were listening to them.

²⁶Suddenly there was a very big earthquake. It shook the jail, and even the cement underneath it, and all the doors of the jail swung open, and all the chains fell off the arms and legs of the prisoners.

²⁷The jail boss woke up and saw that the doors of the jail were open, and he thought, “Those prisoners have all run away. I’m in big trouble.” So he got his big knife to kill himself.

²⁸Paul saw the jail boss and shouted to him, “Don’t hurt yourself. We are all here.”

²⁹The jail boss told somebody to bring some lights, then he ran into the jail and got down in front of Paul and Silas, to show them respect. He was very afraid. He was shaking.

³⁰Then he took Paul and Silas out of the jail and asked, “Sirs, what can I do so that God will save me?”

³¹They said, “Believe in Jesus, and God will save you. And he will do the same for your family too.”

³²Then the jail boss took Paul and Silas into his house, and washed the sores on their backs, and gave them some food to eat. And Paul and Silas told the message about Jesus to the jail boss and to his family. They all believed in Jesus, and Paul and Silas baptised them. They were all very happy.

³⁵The next morning the Roman town bosses said to some policemen, “Go and tell the jail boss, ‘You can let those 2 prisoners go now.’” Then the policemen told that message to the jail boss.

³⁶So the jail boss told Paul, “The town bosses have sent a message telling me to let you and Silas go free. So you can go quietly out of the jail now.”

³⁷But Paul said to them, “No. Yesterday those bosses didn’t take us to court to find out if we did anything wrong, or not. They just told men to hit us in front of the crowd. Then they put us in jail. But, you see, we are Jews, but we are Romans too. Our names are in the books in the Roman offices. So those bosses broke the Roman law yesterday. And now they want to send us away while nobody is looking. No way. Those Roman bosses have to get up and come to us and tell us that they are sorry, and take us out of this jail.”

³⁸So the policemen went and told Paul’s words to the town bosses. As soon as those bosses heard that Paul and Silas were not just Jews, but they were Romans too, they got frightened. Those bosses knew they broke the Roman law.