Roman soldiers take hold of Paul
22 The people listened carefully to Paul until he spoke about the Gentiles. Then they began to shout loudly, ‘Take him away! Kill him! It is not right that he should live any longer!’
23 While they were shouting this, they were taking off their coats. They also threw dirt from the ground up into the air.
22:23The Jews did this to show that they were angry.
24 The leader of the soldiers said to his men, ‘Take this man into our building. Then hit him with whips. We must find out what he has done. He must tell us why the Jews are shouting so loudly against him.’
25 So the soldiers tied Paul's arms and they were ready to hit him. But Paul spoke to the soldiers' officer who stood near to him. He said, ‘I am a citizen of Rome. So it is not right for you to hit me like that. No judge has agreed that I have done anything wrong.’
26 The officer heard what Paul said. So he went to the leader of the soldiers and he said, ‘That man is a citizen of Rome! Be careful what you do to him!’
27 So the soldiers' leader went to speak to Paul. He asked him, ‘Tell me. Are you really a citizen of Rome?’
Paul answered, ‘Yes, I am.’
28 The soldiers' leader said, ‘I paid a lot of money to the government so that I could become a citizen of Rome.’
Paul replied, ‘But I was already a citizen of Rome when I was born.’
29 Immediately, the men who wanted to hit Paul with whips moved away from him. The leader of the soldiers was also very afraid. He had tied chains around Paul's arms and legs. He knew that he should not have done that to a citizen of Rome.
30 The soldiers' leader wanted to find the reason why the Jews had said bad things against Paul. He wanted to know what was really true. So the next day, he told his soldiers to remove the chains from Paul. He sent a message to the most important priest and to all the group of Jewish leaders. He told them to meet together with him. Then he took Paul to their meeting. He made Paul stand in front of them.
