Acts 19:18-28

¹⁸Many, too, of those who had become believers in Christ came with a full confession of their practices;

¹⁹while a number of people, who had practiced magic, collected their books and burnt them publicly; and on reckoning up the price of these, they found it amounted to fifty thousand silver coins.

²⁰So irresistibly did the Lord's message spread and prevail.

²¹Sometime after these events Paul resolved to go through Macedonia and Greece, and then make his way to Jerusalem. “And after I have been there,” he said, “I must visit Rome also.”

²²So he sent to Macedonia two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, while he himself stayed for some time longer in Roman Asia.

²³Just about that time a great disturbance arose about the Way.

²⁴A silversmith named Demetrius, who made silver models of the shrine of Artemis, and so gave a great deal of work to the artisans,

²⁵got these men together, as well as the workmen engaged in similar occupations, and said: “Men, you know that our prosperity depends on this work,

²⁶and you see and hear that not only at Ephesus, but in almost the whole of Roman Asia, this Paul has convinced and won over great numbers of people, by his assertion that those Gods which are made by hands are not Gods at all.

²⁷So that not only is this business of ours likely to fall into discredit, but there is the further danger that the Temple of the great Goddess Artemis will be thought nothing of, and that she herself will be deprived of her splendor — though all Roman Asia and the whole world worship her.”

²⁸When they heard this, the men were greatly enraged, and began shouting — “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”