Soldiers take Paul to Rome
1 Some time after that, Festus decided that we should sail to Italy. So he commanded a soldier called Julius to guard Paul and some other prisoners. Julius was an officer in the Roman army. He had authority over 100 soldiers in a group called ‘The Emperor Augustus Group’.
27:1Luke was with Paul on this journey.
2 We went onto a ship that had come from Adramyttium. This ship was ready to leave. It would sail to the towns on the coast of Asia region. A man called Aristarchus also sailed with us. He came from a city in Macedonia called Thessalonica.
3 The next day after we left Caesarea, we arrived at Sidon. Julius was kind to Paul. He said, ‘Paul, you can go and visit your friends here. They can give you anything that you need.’ 4 Then we sailed out across the sea again. But the wind was blowing against our ship. So we sailed round the island called Cyprus. We sailed on the side of the island where the wind was not strong. 5 When we were near to Cilicia and Pamphylia, we sailed straight across the sea. Then we arrived at Myra, in the region called Lycia. 6 The Roman officer found another ship there. It had sailed from Alexandria and it would sail to Italy. So the officer put us on this ship. 7 We sailed slowly for several days. It was difficult to sail, but after some time we arrived near the town of Cnidus. Because of the strong wind, we could not continue to sail in that direction. So we sailed along the side of the island called Crete, where the wind was not strong. We sailed past the point of land called Salmone. 8 It was still difficult to sail, so we sailed near to the coast. Then we arrived at a place called ‘Safe Port’. This port was near to the town of Lasea.
9 We remained there for many days. By then it had become dangerous to continue the journey. It was already after the Day of Atonement.
27:9If all this happened in the year AD 59, the Day of Atonement was on 5th October that year. It was dangerous to travel by ship after the beginning of October. The winds were very strong. The Day of Atonement was a special day when the Jews asked God to forgive them.
So Paul spoke to the army officer and to the sailors. 10 He said, ‘Friends, I understand that now our journey will be dangerous. The ship may break in pieces. You may lose the things that the ship is carrying. All of us may even die.’ 11 But the army officer did not believe what Paul said. Instead, he decided to do what the owner of the ship and the captain said.
27:11The owner was the man that the ship belonged to. The captain had authority on the ship to sail it and to tell the sailors what to do.
12 This port was not a good place for a ship to remain during the winter. Most of the men on the ship wanted to continue the journey. They wanted to sail as far as Phoenix, if they could get there. They could stay there for the winter. Phoenix was a port on the island called Crete. It was open to the sea both to the south-west and to the north-west.
27:12South-west means in a direction between south and west. North-west means in a direction between north and west.
