Acts 28:13-30

¹³Then we kept going and we came to a town called Rhegium, in Italy country. The next day the wind was blowing from behind us and pushing us fast, and the day after that we came to the town called Puteoli. Then we got off there and left that ship.

¹⁴We met some Christians in Puteoli, and they asked us to stay with them, so we stayed there for a week. Then we left Puteoli and started to go along the road to Rome.

¹⁵Some Christians that lived in Rome heard that we were coming, so they came out from Rome to meet us half way. Some of them met us at the place called Appius, and others met us at the place called the 3 Pubs. Paul saw them and he felt really good and happy, and he thanked God for them.

¹⁶Then we all came to Rome. The Roman boss that was in charge of the prisoners there let Paul live in a house by himself, but he always had a soldier there to guard him.

¹⁷After Paul was in Rome for 3 days, he sent a message to the Jewish leaders to come and talk with him. So they came, and Paul said to them, “My brothers, I didn’t do anything bad to our people, and I didn’t say anything bad about our Jewish culture. But our leaders in Jerusalem grabbed me, and they started to kill me. Then the boss of the Roman soldiers came and got me, and made me his prisoner.

¹⁸The Roman bosses asked me questions in their court, and they listened to what I said to answer them, and they reckoned that I didn’t do anything bad. So they wanted to let me go.

¹⁹But the Jewish leaders didn’t agree, so I had to ask those bosses to send me to Rome, for the big boss called Caesar to judge me. But I don’t want to make any trouble for my own Jewish people, about anything.

²⁰So I asked you to come here now. I want to meet you and tell you my story. You see, I believe in the man that we are all waiting for. He is the one that God promised to send to us Israel people. But our leaders of Israel didn’t agree with me, and that is why I’m a prisoner now, tied up with this chain.”

²¹Then the Jewish leaders said, “We didn’t get any letters about you from our Jewish friends in Judea country. And some people came here from Judea, but none of them said anything bad about you.

²²But we know that people in a lot of places don’t agree with the Christians, so we want to hear what you have to say.”

²³Then they talked together and agreed to come back on another day to hear Paul. When that day came a lot of Jews came to Paul’s house. He started talking with them in the morning, and he kept going until the sun went down. He told them about the way God wants to bring people into his family, and he showed them that God’s book says that Jesus is the man that God sent to save people. He talked to them about the words in God’s book that Moses wrote, and the words that God’s other men wrote. He showed them that they all told that message about Jesus.

²⁴Some of them believed Paul’s words, but others didn’t believe him.

²⁵So they started to argue with each other, and then they got up to go home. Then Paul told those that didn’t believe his message, “The Holy Spirit said a true word to your grand-fathers of long ago. He got his man, called Isaiah, to write it in God’s book. He wrote,

²⁶‘Go to these Jewish people and say, “You keep hearing God’s words with your ears, but you don’t understand them properly. It’s like your ears are going deaf. You keep looking with your eyes and you see God doing things, but you don’t understand it all. It’s like you closed your eyes. Your problem is that you don’t want to know God’s message. If you do understand God’s message properly you will turn around and come back to him, and then God will not say you are guilty for the bad things you did. But you mob don’t want to come back to God.” ’ That’s what Isaiah wrote.”

²⁸Paul kept talking to them, he said, “You Jews have to understand this. God sent his message to you, but you didn’t listen to it. So he is sending that message to the people that are not Jews, and they will listen to it, and believe it.”

³⁰For the next 2 years Paul was a prisoner in Rome, but he wasn’t in jail. They let him stay in the house that he rented. A lot of people came to him, and he was happy to see them and talk with them.