Acts 18:1-17

¹After this Paul departed from Athens ²There he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to depart from Rome. Paul approached them, ³and because he worked at the same trade, he stayed with them and worked with them (for they were tentmakers by trade). ⁴He addressed both Jews and Greeks in the synagogue every Sabbath, attempting to persuade them. ⁵Now when Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul became wholly absorbed with proclaiming the word, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. ⁶When they opposed him and reviled him, he protested by shaking out his clothes and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am guiltless! From now on I will go to the Gentiles!” ⁷Then Paul left the synagogue and went to the house of a person named Titius Justus, a Gentile who worshiped God, whose house was next door to the synagogue. ⁸Crispus, the president of the synagogue, believed in the Lord together with his entire household, and many of the Corinthians who heard about it believed and were baptized. ⁹The Lord said to Paul by a vision in the night, “Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent, ¹⁰because I am with you, and no one will assault you to harm you, because I have many people in this city.” ¹¹So he stayed there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.

Paul Before the Proconsul Gallio

¹²Now while Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews attacked Paul together and brought him before the judgment seat, ¹³saying, “This man is persuading people to worship God in a way contrary to the law!” ¹⁴But just as Paul was about to speak, Gallio said to the Jews, “If it were a matter of some crime or serious piece of villainy, I would have been justified in accepting the complaint of you Jews, ¹⁵but since it concerns points of disagreement about words and names and your own law, settle it yourselves. I will not be a judge of these things!” ¹⁶Then he had them forced away from the judgment seat. ¹⁷So they all seized Sosthenes, the president of the synagogue, and began to beat him in front of the judgment seat. Yet none of these things were of any concern to Gallio.