Acts 23:4-16

⁴The men that were standing near Paul said, “You are saying something bad to God’s man, the big boss of our Jewish ceremonies. You shouldn’t do that.”

⁵Paul said, “Oh, my bothers, I’m sorry. I didn’t know that he is the big boss of our Jewish ceremonies. I know that Moses wrote in our Jewish law, ‘Don’t say bad things about any of your bosses.’”

⁶Some of the Jewish council men there belonged to the mob called Sadducees, and others belonged to the mob called Pharisees. The Sadducee mob believe that after people die, they will never become alive again. And they believe that there are no spirits, not even God’s spirit messengers called angels. But the Pharisees believe that all of those things are true. Paul worked out that some of those council men were Sadducees, and some were Pharisees, so he called out loudly to them. He said, “My friends, I’m a Pharisee, like my father was. I believe that after people die, one day God will make them alive again. That’s why I’m here in this court.” As soon as Paul said that, the Pharisees and Sadducees started to argue with each other.

⁹The council split into 2 mobs and started shouting at each other. Some of the teachers of the law were Pharisees. They stood up and said, “We reckon this man hasn’t done anything wrong. Maybe an angel or some other spirit talked to him. That’s all right.”

¹⁰Then those 2 mobs argued with each other and got really wild, and the big boss of the soldiers thought, “They are going to tear Paul to bits.” So he told his soldiers, “Go and save Paul from those council men, and take him back to your big house.” So the soldiers did that.

¹¹That night, Paul saw Jesus come and stand near him, and Jesus said to him, “Be brave, Paul. You told people here in Jerusalem about me, and you have to tell people in Rome about me, too.”

¹²The next morning some of those Jews met together secretly and thought about a way to kill Paul. Then they promised God, “We will not eat or drink anything until we kill Paul. If we break this promise and don’t kill Paul, then, God, you can kill us.”

¹³There were more than 40 men in that mob.

¹⁴They went to the leaders of the Jewish ceremonies and the other Jewish leaders and told them, “We promised God that we will not eat or drink anything until we kill Paul.

¹⁵So we want you to go to the big boss of the soldiers and say to him, ‘The Jewish council wants to ask Paul some more questions. Can you bring him to our meeting place?’ But we will hide beside the road, and when they bring Paul along it we will jump up and kill him.”

¹⁶But the son of Paul’s sister heard what those Jews were going to do, so he went into the big house of the soldiers and told Paul about it.