Acts 24:15-26

¹⁵And I’m sure that one day God will make all the dead people come alive again, both the people that were good and the people that were bad. These Jewish leaders here agree with me about that, too.

¹⁶I always try to do whatever God wants, and I always try to do whatever other people want too, so I always feel good about the things I do.

¹⁷Let me tell you what happened. A few years ago I went to some other countries, and then a few days ago I got back to Jerusalem. I brought some money with me to give to poor people there, and I wanted to show respect to God by giving things to him at his ceremony house.

¹⁸And I did the ceremony to make myself clean. But some Jews saw me there at God’s ceremony house. I was by myself. There was no mob of people with me, and I was not upsetting anybody or getting them to go wild.

¹⁹But it was some other Jews from Asia country that made the people go wild. If those Asia Jews really thought I did something wrong, why didn’t they come here to blame me in front of you? I reckon they know their story isn’t true.

²⁰And this mob here, they had me in their Jewish court in Jerusalem. But can they tell you that they found me guilty of something? No. I told them my story and they didn’t say that I was guilty of anything.

²¹But there is one thing I did in that court that upset them. I shouted, ‘You are judging me today because I believe that God will make all the dead people become alive again.’ That’s all I said.”

²²Then Felix stopped the court. You see, he already knew a lot about the Jesus Way. He said to them all, “That boss of the soldiers in Jerusalem, called Lysias, he will come here later, and I will listen to his story too, and then I will say if Paul is guilty or not.”

²³Then he told the boss of his soldiers, “Take Paul back to the jail and make sure that he stays there, but don’t tie him up. And let his friends come to visit him and look after him.”

²⁴A few days later Felix came back with his wife. She was a Jewish woman called Drusilla. Felix told a soldier to bring Paul to them, and they listened to him talk. Paul told them, “We have to believe in Jesus. He is the one God sent to us.”

²⁵And Paul told them about the way God wants people to live, and that he wants us to do what is right, and he wants us to control ourselves. And Paul told them that God will judge everybody one day. Felix heard Paul talking about those things and he got frightened. He said, “Stop, Paul, that’s enough. You can go back to the jail now. Maybe there will be a better time, and then I will get you to come and talk to me again.”

²⁶And Felix hoped that Paul might give him some money to let him get out of jail, so he often sent somebody to get Paul, and he talked with him. But Paul didn’t give Felix any money, so Felix didn’t let him go.