But when Paul appealed to be kept in custody for the decision of His Majesty the Emperor, I ordered him to be kept under guard until I could send him to Caesar.”

So Agrippa said to Paul, “You have permission to speak for yourself.” Then Paul held out his hand and began his defense:

Now all the Jews know the way I lived from my youth, spending my life from the beginning among my own people and in Jerusalem.

that the Christ was to suffer and be the first to rise from the dead, to proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles.”

As Paul was saying these things in his defense, Festus exclaimed loudly, “You have lost your mind, Paul! Your great learning is driving you insane!”

When it was decided we would sail to Italy, they handed over Paul and some other prisoners to a centurion of the Augustan Cohort named Julius.

We sailed slowly for many days and arrived with difficulty off Cnidus. Because the wind prevented us from going any farther, we sailed under the lee of Crete off Salmone.

After the crew had hoisted it aboard, they used supports to undergird the ship. Fearing they would run aground on the Syrtis, they lowered the sea anchor, thus letting themselves be driven along.

When the fourteenth night had come, while we were being driven across the Adriatic Sea, about midnight the sailors suspected they were approaching some land.

First of all, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed throughout the whole world.

and I always ask in my prayers, if perhaps now at last I may succeed in visiting you according to the will of God.

For although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give him thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts and their senseless hearts were darkened.

And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what should not be done.

For whenever the Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature the things required by the law, these who do not have the law are a law to themselves.

Against hope Abraham believed in hope with the result that he became the father of many nations according to the pronouncement, “so will your descendants be.”

but also for our sake, to whom it will be credited, those who believe in the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.

Not only this, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation.

And the gift is not like the one who sinned. For judgment, resulting from the one transgression, led to condemnation, but the gracious gift from the many failures led to justification.

because those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

For I could wish that I myself were accursed – cut off from Christ – for the sake of my people, my fellow countrymen,