The Jewish leaders accuse Paul
1 Five days after that, Ananias, the leader of the priests, went to Caesarea. Some important Jews went with him. A man called Tertullus also went with them. He was a lawyer. All these people went to meet with Felix, the ruler. They told Felix what Paul had done. Felix would judge who was right. 2 Felix told a soldier to bring Paul to the meeting.
24:1A lawyer is someone who knows about the laws of a country.
Then Tertullus began to accuse Paul. He said to Felix, ‘Sir, you have ruled us well for many years. Because of you, our country has had no wars for a long time. You have made new laws that are good for our country. You have thought well about how you should lead us. 3 Everywhere, the people are happy about what you have done. So we want to thank you very much for all these good things. 4 I do not want you to sit here for a long time. So I will speak for a short time about our problem. Please be kind to us and listen to me.
5 We know that this man brings trouble everywhere. Anywhere in the world that Jewish people live, he makes them angry. Then they all fight each other. He is the leader of a group called the Nazarenes. 6 He also did bad things in the temple that are against our laws. So we took hold of him. [We wanted to judge him by what our own law says. 7 But Lysias, the leader of the soldiers, came to us. He attacked us and he took Paul away from us. 8 Then he told us to come and to speak to you about it.] You should ask this man some questions about what he has done. You will realize that what we say against him is true.’
24:5Tertullus wanted Felix to think that Paul was causing a problem to Roman authority.
24:8Part of verses 6, 7 and 8 are not in all copies of the Bible.
9 The other Jews that were there also spoke against Paul. They said, ‘All these things that Tertullus has said are true.’
