Jeremiah 26:11

⁴Then the princes said to the king, “Please let this man be put to death, because he weakens the hands of the men of war who remain in this city, and the hands of all the people, in speaking such words to them; for this man doesn’t seek the welfare of this people, but harm.”

⁶⁶What do you think?” They answered, “He is worthy of death!”

²⁰But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.”

¹¹Then they secretly induced men to say, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.” ¹²They stirred up the people, the elders, and the scribes, and came against him and seized him, then brought him in to the council, ¹³and set up false witnesses who said, “This man never stops speaking blasphemous words against this holy place and the law. ¹⁴For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place, and will change the customs which Moses delivered to us.”

²³Yet, LORD, you know all their counsel against me to kill me. Don’t forgive their iniquity. Don’t blot out their sin from your sight, Let them be overthrown before you. Deal with them in the time of your anger.

⁷The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.”

³⁰They answered him, “If this man weren’t an evildoer, we wouldn’t have delivered him up to you.”

²²They listened to him until he said that; then they lifted up their voice and said, “Rid the earth of this fellow, for he isn’t fit to live!”

¹The whole company of them rose up and brought him before Pilate. ²They began to accuse him, saying, “We found this man perverting the nation, forbidding paying taxes to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king.”

³Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” He answered him, “So you say.”

⁴Pilate said to the chief priests and the multitudes, “I find no basis for a charge against this man.”

⁵But they insisted, saying, “He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee even to this place.”

²Then the high priest and the principal men of the Jews informed him against Paul, and they begged him, ³asking a favor against him, that he would summon him to Jerusalem, plotting to kill him on the way. ⁴However Festus answered that Paul should be kept in custody at Caesarea, and that he himself was about to depart shortly. ⁵“Let them therefore”, he said, “that are in power among you go down with me, and if there is anything wrong in the man, let them accuse him.”

⁶When he had stayed among them more than ten days, he went down to Caesarea, and on the next day he sat on the judgment seat, and commanded Paul to be brought. ⁷When he had come, the Jews who had come down from Jerusalem stood around him, bringing against him many and grievous charges which they could not prove, ⁸while he said in his defense, “Neither against the law of the Jews, nor against the temple, nor against Caesar, have I sinned at all.”

⁹But Festus, desiring to gain favor with the Jews, answered Paul and said, “Are you willing to go up to Jerusalem and be judged by me there concerning these things?”

¹⁰But Paul said, “I am standing before Caesar’s judgment seat, where I ought to be tried. I have done no wrong to the Jews, as you also know very well. ¹¹For if I have done wrong and have committed anything worthy of death, I don’t refuse to die; but if none of those things is true that they accuse me of, no one can give me up to them. I appeal to Caesar!”

¹²Then Festus, when he had conferred with the council, answered, “You have appealed to Caesar. To Caesar you shall go.”

¹³Now when some days had passed, King Agrippa and Bernice arrived at Caesarea and greeted Festus.