Acts 24:8-20

⁸If you ask him questions you will find out for yourself that everything we are telling you is true.”

⁹The other Jewish leaders blamed Paul too, and they reckoned that everything Tertullus said was true.

¹⁰Then the governor waved with his hand to Paul to let him know that it was his turn to talk. So Paul said, “I know that you have been a judge in this country for a long time, so I’m happy to tell you the true story.

¹¹You see, just 12 days ago I went to Jerusalem to show respect to God. You can check on this yourself and you will find that it is true. That is not enough time for me to make a lot of trouble.

¹²This mob didn’t see me arguing with anyone at God’s ceremony house, and they didn’t see me upsetting anybody, or making them go wild, not in any Jewish meeting house, and nowhere else in Jerusalem. I never did that anywhere.

¹³They can’t show you that the things they say are true.

¹⁴But I can tell you this, I do show respect to the God that our Jewish tribe always respected. It is true that I’m with the mob called the Jesus Way. The Jewish leaders say that our mob are wrong, but that is not true. And I believe everything in God’s book. I keep our law and I believe everything that God got his men to write in his book.

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.