Công Vụ Các Sứ Đồ 25

Festus hears Paul, and Paul appeals to Caesar

¹Festus had been in his province only three days when he left Caesarea and went up to Jerusalem. ²The chief priests and the most prominent Jews laid their charges against Paul before him and kept pressing him. ³They asked him for a favor that would harm Paul: to send for him to come to Jerusalem. They meant to lie in wait and kill him on the way. ⁴Festus replied that Paul was being held at Caesarea, and that he himself would soon be going back there. ⁵“So let your leading men travel down with me,” he said, “and if there is anything improper about this man, they can accuse him there.”

⁶He spent no more than eight or ten days with them and then went down to Caesarea. The day after he arrived, he took his place on the judgment seat and had Paul brought in. ⁷As soon as Paul appeared, the Jews who had come down from Jerusalem crowded around him and laid many heavy charges on him, none of which they could prove. ⁸Paul’s defense was this: “I have committed no offense against the law of the Jews, nor against the temple, nor against Caesar.” ⁹Festus, though, was looking to build up favor with the Jews. He turned to Paul and said, “Would you agree to go up to Jerusalem and have these matters judged there, with me presiding?” ¹⁰Paul said, “The court I stand before is Caesar’s, and here is where my case belongs. I have wronged the Jews in nothing, and you know this quite well yourself. ¹¹If I am guilty and have done something for which I deserve to die, I do not ask to be spared death. But if there is nothing in what these men accuse me of, no one can hand me over to them as a favor. I appeal to Caesar!” ¹²Then Festus talked it over with his advisers and replied, “You have appealed to Caesar. To Caesar you shall go.”

Festus lays Paul’s case before King Agrippa

¹³After some days had gone by, King Agrippa and Bernice came to Caesarea on a visit of welcome to Festus.^{a 14}Their visit lasted many days, and during it Festus told the king about Paul. “Felix left a certain man behind in custody,” he said. ¹⁵“When I went to Jerusalem, the chief priests and the Jewish elders laid information against him and asked me to condemn him. ¹⁶I told them that it is not the Roman way to give anyone up as a favor until the accused person has met the accusers face to face and been given a chance to answer the charge. ¹⁷So when they had come here with me, I lost no time. The very next day I took my place on the judgment seat and had the man brought in. ¹⁸His accusers stood up, but the charges they brought were not the crimes I had been expecting. ¹⁹What they had against him were certain questions about their own religion, and about a certain Jesus, who was dead, whom Paul asserted to be alive.^{b 20}I was unsure how to go about investigating questions like these, and so I asked whether he would like to go to Jerusalem and have the matter judged there. ²¹But Paul appealed to be held for the emperor’s decision, so I ordered him to be kept in custody until I can send him on to Caesar.” ²²Agrippa told Festus, “I have been wanting to hear the man for myself.”

“You will hear him tomorrow,” Festus replied.

²³So the following day Agrippa and Bernice came with a great show of splendor. They went into the hall of hearing along with the tribunes and the city’s most important men, and Festus gave the order for Paul to be brought. ²⁴Then Festus spoke: “King Agrippa, and all of you who are here with us, look at this man. The entire Jewish people has come to me about him, in Jerusalem and here too, shouting that he has no right to go on living. ²⁵I, for my part, saw that he had committed no crime that merits death. And as he has made an appeal to the emperor himself, I resolved to send him on. ²⁶Yet I have nothing solid to put in a letter about him to my lord. That is why I have brought him out here before you all, King Agrippa, you above all, so that once he has been examined I may have something I can write. ²⁷For to send a prisoner and not make clear what he is charged with seems senseless to me.”