Acts 19:7-25

⁷There were about twelve men in all.

⁸During three months Paul kept going to the synagogue and speaking boldly, reasoning and persuading concerning the things of the Kingdom of God.

⁹But when some became hardened and disobedient, maligning the Way before the crowd, he withdrew from them and separated the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of a certain Tyrannus.

¹⁰Now this continued for two years, so that all who lived in Asia, both Jews and Greeks, heard the Word of the Lord Jesus.

¹¹Further, God kept working unusual miracles by the hands of Paul,

¹²so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that he touched were applied to the sick, and the diseases left them and the wicked spirits went out from them.

¹³Well some among the itinerant Jewish exorcists attempted to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had wicked spirits saying, “We adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches.”

¹⁴In fact there were seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, who were doing this.

¹⁵But a particular wicked spirit reacted and said, “Jesus I know, and I am acquainted with Paul, but who are you?”

¹⁶And the man in whom the wicked spirit was jumped on them and overpowered them; he was so much stronger that they ran out of that house naked and wounded.

¹⁷Now this became known to all, both Jews and Greeks, who lived in Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was being exalted.

¹⁸And many of those who had believed started coming, confessing and disclosing their practices.

¹⁹In fact, many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them up, in front of everybody (they had calculated their value and it totaled fifty thousand pieces of silver).

²⁰With power like that it was that the word of the Lord kept growing and prevailing.

²¹Now after these things were accomplished, Paul resolved in his spirit to go to Jerusalem, passing through Macedonia and Achaia, saying, “After I have been there, I must also see Rome.”

²²So he sent two of those who ministered to him, Timothy and Erastus, on to Macedonia, while he himself stayed on in Asia for a time.

²³Now it was during that time that a serious disturbance concerning the Way occurred.

²⁴A certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, habitually brought in plenty of business for the artisans;

²⁵he called them together, along with the workmen in related trades, and said: “Men, you know that our prosperity depends on this trade.