Acts 27:1-25

¹Later the governor reckoned it was time for Paul to go to Rome, in Italy country, so he took him and some other prisoners to a boss of soldiers, called Julius, and told him, “Take all these prisoners to Rome.” Julius was the boss of a mob of soldiers called the Augustus Mob. They let me, Luke, go with them.

²So we got on a ship that came from a town called Adramyttium. It was going to sail to some of the towns along the coast of Asia country. Aristarchus and I went with Paul. Aristarchus comes from Thessalonica, in Macedonia country. We all started sailing on that ship, and

³the next day we stopped at the town called Sidon. Julius was good to Paul and let him go and see his friends there, so they could give him anything he needed. Then he came back on to the ship.

⁴After that the ship left Sidon, but the wind was blowing against us, so the ship went along the north side of Cyprus Island, to get away from the wind.

⁵Then we crossed over the sea close to the coast of Cilicia country and Pamphylia country, and we came to a town called Myra, in Lycia country. Then we got off the ship there and looked for another ship to take us to Rome.

⁶In Myra, people told Julius, “There is another ship here that came from the town called Alexandria, and it is going to sail to Italy country.” So Julius took us to that other ship, and we got on it, and we left Myra.

⁷We sailed slowly for a few days and then we came close to the coast of Asia country, near a town called Cnidus. After that the wind got very strong. It didn’t let the ship sail straight ahead toward the west, so we sailed toward the south. We sailed along the south side of Crete Island to get away from the wind. We went past Cape Salmone.

⁸The wind was still strong, so the ship couldn’t sail properly, and we went slowly along the coast of Crete Island until we came to a place called Fair Havens Harbour, near a town called Lasea.

⁹It took us a long time to get to Fair Havens Harbour. It was already October, and the bad weather was coming soon. If we kept going we might get big trouble from storms. So Paul said to the men in charge of the ship,

¹⁰“Listen, men, I reckon that if we keep going we will get big trouble. I reckon a storm will wreck this ship and you will lose everything in it, and we might drown too.”

¹¹But the boss of the soldiers didn’t listen to Paul. He listened to the captain and the owner of the ship.

¹²That place, Fair Havens Harbour, was not a good place to stay in the cold weather time, so most of the people on the ship reckoned we had to leave there and go on a bit further, to a town called Phoenix, and stay there for the cold weather time. The harbour at Phoenix was all right. It was open to the sea in 2 directions, but the strong winds didn’t blow in those directions in the cold weather time.

¹³We waited at Fair Havens Harbour till the strong wind stopped. Then a little wind started to blow from the south, and the sailors thought that they could sail the ship to Phoenix, so they lifted the anchor, and sailed west along the southern shore of Crete Island.

¹⁴But after a little while, the wind changed, and a big strong wind blew across the island from the north side, and it pushed the ship to the south, away from the land. (That wind was called the Northeaster.)

¹⁵The sailors couldn’t steer the ship the right way. The wind kept blowing it the wrong way. So they just let the wind take the ship anywhere.

¹⁶The ship was towing a little boat behind it. After a little while we went beside a little island called Cauda. That little island blocked the wind a bit, so we could lift the little boat up out of the water and tie it on to the deck of the ship. The strong wind made that a really hard job for us.

¹⁷After that the sailors tied ropes around the middle of the ship to make it stronger, so the waves wouldn’t break it. The wind was pushing the ship very fast, and the sailors reckoned we might run on to the sandbanks near Libya country, and get stuck there, so they got a big bag on a rope, and they threw it out behind the ship and let it drag in the water. This made the ship slow down a bit, but the wind kept blowing it along.

¹⁸The wind and the waves kept throwing the ship about. It was very rough. So the next day the sailors wanted to make the ship lighter and they started to throw things overboard. They threw away all the load that the ship was carrying.

¹⁹On the 3rd day of the storm the sailors even threw overboard a lot of the ship’s own things, like its sails, and poles.

²⁰The wind kept blowing really hard, and the sky was full of dark clouds all day and all night. We couldn’t see the sun or the stars for a long time, so we didn’t know where we were. And the wind and the waves kept throwing us about, and after some time we thought we were going to drown in the sea.

²¹None of us on the ship wanted to eat any food. We didn’t eat anything for a long time. Then one day, Paul stood up in front of us and said, “Listen, men, you didn’t listen to me in Crete but you sailed out of that little harbour. So now you are in trouble, and you lost all the things this ship was carrying.

²²But listen. Don’t be frightened. I’m telling you that none of us will die. But the wind and waves will wreck this ship.

²³You see, I work for God, and last night he sent one of his angel messengers to me. He came and stood beside me,

²⁴and he said, ‘Paul, don’t be frightened. You have to go to Rome and stand in front of the big boss called Caesar. And God will be good to all the others, too, that are with you on this ship. None of them will die.’

²⁵Listen friends, I believe that God will help us, just like that angel told me.