Acts 16:18-32

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.