Acts 18 | Day 9

Acts 18 (NIV 1984)

¹After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.
²There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them,
³and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them.
⁴Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.
⁵When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself exclusively to preaching, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ.
⁶But when they opposed him and insulted him, he shook out his clothes in protest and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”
⁷Then he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God. His house was next door to the synagogue.
⁸Crispus, the synagogue leader, and his entire household believed in the Lord; and many of the Corinthians who heard Paul believed and were baptized.
⁹One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: “Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent.
¹⁰For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.”
¹¹So Paul stayed in Corinth for a year and a half, teaching them the word of God.

¹²While Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him to court.
¹³“This man,” they charged, “is persuading the people to worship God in ways contrary to the law.”
¹⁴Just as Paul was about to speak, Gallio said to them, “If it were a matter of wrongdoing or wicked crime, O Jews, I would have a reason to accept your complaint.
¹⁵But since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law—settle the matter yourselves. I will not be a judge of such things.”
¹⁶He drove them off from the court,
¹⁷and the crowd there joined in the attack on Sosthenes the synagogue leader, and all of this with Gallio’s approval.

¹⁸Paul stayed on in Corinth for some time. Then he left the brothers and sisters and sailed for Syria, accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila. There he shaved his head at Cenchreae because of a vow he had taken.
¹⁹They arrived at Ephesus, where Paul left them; he himself entered the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews.
²⁰When they asked him to stay longer, he declined.
²¹But as he left, he promised, “I will come back if it is God’s will.” Then he set sail from Ephesus.
²²When he landed at Caesarea, he went up and greeted the church and then went down to Antioch.