사도행전 27

Paul sails for Italy

¹Once our voyage to Italy had been decided, they placed Paul and a number of other prisoners in the custody of Julius, a centurion of the Augustan cohort. ²We went aboard a ship from Adramyttium that was due to call at ports along the coast of Asia, and we put out to sea. Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica, was with us. ³The next day we landed at Sidon. Julius was considerate toward Paul and allowed him to go to his friends and be looked after by them. ⁴Putting out from there, we sailed on the sheltered side of Cyprus, because the winds were against us. ⁵We crossed the open water off Cilicia and Pamphylia and came to Myra in Lycia.^{a 6}At Myra the centurion came across an Alexandrian ship headed for Italy and transferred us to it. ⁷For many days we made slow headway and only with difficulty arrived off Cnidus. Since the wind would not let us hold our course, we sailed in the shelter of Crete, passing Salmone. ⁸Working our way along the shore with difficulty, we reached a place called Fair Havens, close to the town of Lasea.

⁹A great deal of time had gone by, and sailing was now hazardous, since even the Fast was past. So Paul gave them advice. ¹⁰“Men,” he said, “I can tell that this voyage is heading for harm and heavy loss, not only to the cargo and the ship but to our own lives too.” ¹¹But the centurion put more trust in the helmsman and the owner of the ship than in what Paul was saying. ¹²The harbor was a poor place to spend the winter, so most of them were for putting out to sea again, in the hope of somehow getting to Phoenix to winter there. Phoenix is a harbor in Crete that faces both southwest and northwest.^b

The wind called Euraquilo

¹³When a light breeze came up from the south, they thought their plan could be carried out. So they raised anchor and sailed along Crete, close to shore. ¹⁴But soon afterward a storm wind called Euraquilo, the northeaster, came rushing down off Crete.^{c 15}The ship was caught up in it and could not be turned into the wind, so we gave way and drifted before it. ¹⁶We ran in the lee of a small island called Cauda, and there, with great effort, we managed to secure the ship’s boat. ¹⁷After hoisting it aboard, the crew used ropes to brace the ship, passing them around the hull. They were afraid of being driven onto the sandbanks of the Syrtis, so they let down the sea anchor and were carried along in that way.^{de 18}The storm pounded us so fiercely that on the following day they started jettisoning the cargo. ¹⁹On the third day they took the ship’s spare gear and hurled it into the sea with their own hands.^{f 20}Day after day there was no sun and no stars to be seen, and the storm kept bearing down on us with great force. In the end every hope that we would come through alive was slipping away from us.

Take heart

²¹No one had eaten for a long time. Then Paul stood up among them and said, “Men, you should have heeded me and stayed in Crete instead of setting out. You would have avoided all this damage and loss. ²²Even so, I now urge you to take heart. Not one life among you will be lost; only the ship will go. ²³For during this night an angel came and stood beside me, an angel of the God whose I am and whom I worship. ²⁴He told me, ‘Paul, do not be afraid. You are to appear before Caesar. And look: God has granted you everyone who is on board with you.’ ²⁵So take heart, men! I believe God: it will happen just the way I was told. ²⁶But we have to be cast ashore on some island.”

²⁷It was the fourteenth night, and we were drifting this way and that across the sea of Adria. Around midnight the crew started to suspect that land was coming near. ²⁸They dropped a sounding line and found the water 120 feet deep. A little farther on they sounded again and found it 90 feet. ²⁹They were afraid we might strike a rocky coast somewhere, so they threw out four anchors from the stern and prayed for morning to come. ³⁰Meanwhile the sailors were trying to abandon the ship. They had lowered the boat into the sea on the excuse that they were about to run out anchors from the bow. ³¹But Paul told the centurion and the soldiers, “If these men do not stay on board, there is no way for you to be saved.” ³²So the soldiers slashed the ropes of the boat and let it go.

Bread before daybreak

³³While they waited for daybreak, Paul kept encouraging all of them to take some food. “This is the fourteenth day,” he said, “that you have kept watch without eating, taking nothing at all. ³⁴So I urge you to take some food. It is for your own survival, since not a hair on the head of any of you will be lost.” ³⁵When he had said this, Paul took bread and, with everyone watching, thanked God for it. Then he broke it and started eating.^{g 36}Everyone was cheered by this, and they too took some food. ³⁷There were 276 of us on the ship in all.^{h 38}Once everyone had eaten enough, they threw the wheat overboard to lighten the ship.

All brought safely to land

³⁹At daybreak the land was unfamiliar to them. But they caught sight of an inlet with a beach, and they made up their minds to drive the ship onto it if possible.^{i 40}They slipped the anchors and let them go into the sea, and at the same time they freed the lashings on the steering oars. Then they set the small front sail to catch the wind and steered toward the beach.^{j 41}But they came upon a place where two seas met and ran the vessel aground. Its bow dug in and held, unable to move, while the stern began to break apart under the violence of the waves.^{kl 42}The soldiers meant to kill the prisoners, so that none of them could swim off and get away. ⁴³The centurion, however, was determined to bring Paul through alive, and he held them back from what they meant to do. He told everyone who could swim to throw themselves into the sea first and head for the shore, ⁴⁴and the rest to come after them, some on boards and others on wreckage from the ship. So it was that all of them came safely to land.^m