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Plain English Version - Acts - Acts 27

Acts 27:9-40

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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.
26But the ship will crash on to an island, and we will all go ashore there.”
27We were in that storm for 2 weeks. The wind was still blowing the ship across the water called the Adriatic Sea. Then, about the middle of the night, the sailors thought the ship was getting close to land.
28So they got a rope with a stone on the end of it and dropped it into the water to find out how deep it was. That stone went down 37 meters into the water, so they knew the water was 37 metres deep. We went a little further and then they threw the stone out again. This time it only went down 28 metres, so they knew the water was not so deep there.
29In that way they knew for sure that the ship was getting close to land. Then they got frightened. They thought the ship might smash on to some rocks, so they threw out 4 anchors on ropes from the back, to stop the ship, and they hoped for daylight to come so they could see the land.
30The sailors wanted to leave the ship in the little boat, so they lied to everyone, they said, “We are going to drop some anchors from the front of the ship.” Then they started to lower the little boat into the sea.
31But Paul told the soldiers, and their boss, “If these sailors don’t stay on the ship, you will all drown.”
32So the soldiers cut the ropes of the little boat and let it fall down into the water and go away.
33Just before daylight came, Paul tried to get everyone to eat some food. He said, “For the past 14 days you were too worried, and you didn’t eat anything.
34So now I’m telling you, you’ve got to eat some food, so you will get stronger and stay alive. I know that none of you will drown.”
35After he said that, while everyone was looking at him, Paul picked up some bread and thanked God for it. Then he broke the bread and started to eat it.
36Then the rest of us felt better, so we all ate some food.
37There were 276 of us on the ship altogether.
38Everyone ate as much as they wanted, then they threw the rest of the seed food out of the ship into the sea, and this made the ship a bit lighter.
39Then the daylight came, and we saw the land. The sailors didn’t know that place, but they could see a bay with a beach, and they reckoned, “Maybe we can steer the ship on to that beach.”
40So they cut the anchor ropes and let the anchors stay in the sea, and at the same time, they untied the rudders, so they could steer the ship again. Then they raised the sail at the front of the ship so the wind could blow the ship towards the land.

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