Acts 28:1-8

¹After we got to the land all right we found out that it was an island called Malta.

²The people that lived there were good to us. It was raining and it was cold, so those people lit a fire and told us, “Come and get warm at this fire.”

³Paul walked around and picked up some sticks and put them on the fire. But a cheeky snake jumped out from those sticks to get away from the fire, and it bit Paul’s hand and just hung on there.

⁴The people saw it hanging from Paul’s hand, and they knew that it was a cheeky one, so they said to each other, “I reckon that prisoner murdered somebody. He has was lucky in the sea and didn’t drown, but the god that punishes people will not let him live. The snake will kill him.”

⁵But Paul just shook the snake until it fell off into the fire, and nothing happened to him.

⁶The people watched Paul. They thought, “His body will swell up, or he will fall down dead.” But after they waited a long time they saw that he was still all right. Nothing bad happened to him. So then they changed their minds and said, “This man is a god.”

⁷The Roman boss of that island was called Publius. He owned some gardens near that beach. He asked us to come and stay at his place, and he took care of us for 3 days.

⁸At that time father of Publius was very sick. He was just lying in his bed all the time. He was hot with fever, and he had diarrhoea. So Paul went to see him. Then he put his hands on him, and prayed for him, and made him better.