Acts 23:18-29

¹⁸So that soldier took him to his big boss and said, “That prisoner, Paul, called me and asked me to take this young man to you. He has some news to tell you.”

¹⁹The big boss held the young man’s hand and took him away from the other people, and then he asked him, “What is the news you have for me?”

²⁰The young man said, “The Jewish leaders will ask you to take Paul to their council place tomorrow. They will tell you they want to ask him some more questions. But that is not true.

²¹Don’t do what they will ask you to do. There are more than 40 men that will hide beside that road and wait for Paul to come along, so they can grab him and kill him. They even promised God that they will not eat or drink anything until they kill Paul. They are ready right now. They are just waiting for you to agree to do what they want.”

²²The big boss of the soldiers said to the young man, “You can go home now, but don’t tell anyone that you told me this news.”

²³Then the big boss got 2 other bosses of soldiers and told them, “Get 200 soldiers ready to go north to Caesarea. And get ready 70 soldiers that ride horses to go there with you, and get another 200 soldiers ready, those soldiers that use spears, and they can go with you too. All of you have to be ready to leave at 9 o’clock tonight.

²⁴And get horses for Paul to ride, and take him to Felix, the governor of this country. He is in the town called Caesarea. Make sure you keep Paul safe.”

²⁵Then that big boss of the soldiers wrote a letter for them to take with them to that governor of the country. He wrote,

²⁶“Dear Felix I am Claudius Lysias. I’m writing to your honour, Felix, the governor of this country. I hope you are good and happy.

²⁷I’m sending this man, Paul, to you. Some Jews grabbed him and they were starting to kill him, but somebody told me that he is a Roman, so I got my soldiers and we saved him.

²⁸Then I wanted to know about the bad thing those Jews blamed him for, so I took him to their Jewish council.

²⁹I found out that they only blamed him for things in their Jewish law. He has not broken any of our Roman laws, so it is not right for us to kill him or put him in jail.