Acts 19:21-28

²¹After those things happened, Paul wanted to visit the Christians in Macedonia country and Achaia country again, and after that he wanted to go on to Jerusalem. And he said, “After I go to Jerusalem, I have to go to Rome too.”

²²He sent his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, ahead of him to Macedonia country. But Paul stayed a little while longer in Asia country.

²³Soon after that, some of the people in Ephesus tried to make a lot of trouble for the Christians, that people called the Jesus Way mob.

²⁴There was a man there called Demetrius. His job was making little statues out of silver. They were models of the special house of a woman god called Artemis. There were other men too that made those little statues. They sold them to people that respected Artemis, and they got a lot of money from that business.

²⁵Demetrius called a meeting of his workers and other men that made things for that god Artemis. Demetrius said to them, “Men, you know that we make these statues and sell them for a lot of money.

²⁶But that man Paul tells big mobs of people, ‘Don’t buy those statues. They are not gods at all.’ He talks like that here in Ephesus, and now even the people from other towns in this Asia country don’t want to buy the things we make. Paul tells people that these statues we make are not gods, and people shouldn’t show respect to them.

²⁷If people keep listening to him, we’ll soon go broke. And not only that, but people will reckon they don’t have to come to the special house of Artemis to show respect to her. People all over our Asia country and everywhere show respect to our great woman god Artemis, but soon people might not think that Artemis is great.”

²⁸All the men there heard Demetrius say that, and then they were very angry with Paul. They started to shout, “Artemis is very great. She is the god of us Ephesus mob.”