Proverbs 24:11

⁴Rescue the weak and needy. Deliver them out of the hand of the wicked.”

⁶“Isn’t this the fast that I have chosen: to release the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke? ⁷Isn’t it to distribute your bread to the hungry, and that you bring the poor who are cast out to your house? When you see the naked, that you cover him; and that you not hide yourself from your own flesh?

¹⁶By this we know love, because he laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. ¹⁷But whoever has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, then closes his heart of compassion against him, how does God’s love remain in him?

¹⁷I broke the jaws of the unrighteous and plucked the prey out of his teeth.

⁸Then Abishai said to David, “God has delivered up your enemy into your hand today. Now therefore please let me strike him with the spear to the earth at one stroke, and I will not strike him the second time.”

⁹David said to Abishai, “Don’t destroy him, for who can stretch out his hand against the LORD’s anointed, and be guiltless?”

³¹By chance a certain priest was going down that way. When he saw him, he passed by on the other side. ³²In the same way a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

³¹As they were trying to kill him, news came up to the commanding officer of the regiment that all Jerusalem was in an uproar. ³²Immediately he took soldiers and centurions and ran down to them. They, when they saw the chief captain and the soldiers, stopped beating Paul.

²³But they were urgent with loud voices, asking that he might be crucified. Their voices and the voices of the chief priests prevailed. ²⁴Pilate decreed that what they asked for should be done. ²⁵He released him who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, for whom they asked, but he delivered Jesus up to their will.

¹⁰When a great argument arose, the commanding officer, fearing that Paul would be torn in pieces by them, commanded the soldiers to go down and take him by force from among them and bring him into the barracks.

²³He called to himself two of the centurions, and said, “Prepare two hundred soldiers to go as far as Caesarea, with seventy horsemen and two hundred men armed with spears, at the third hour of the night.”^24[+] He asked them to provide mounts, that they might set Paul on one, and bring him safely to Felix the governor. ²⁵He wrote a letter like this:

²⁶“Claudius Lysias to the most excellent governor Felix: Greetings.

²⁷“This man was seized by the Jews, and was about to be killed by them when I came with the soldiers and rescued him, having learned that he was a Roman. ²⁸Desiring to know the cause why they accused him, I brought him down to their council. ²⁹I found him to be accused about questions of their law, but not to be charged with anything worthy of death or of imprisonment. ³⁰When I was told that the Jews lay in wait for the man, I sent him to you immediately, charging his accusers also to bring their accusations against him before you. Farewell.”

³¹So the soldiers, carrying out their orders, took Paul and brought him by night to Antipatris. ³²But on the next day they left the horsemen to go with him, and returned to the barracks. ³³When they came to Caesarea and delivered the letter to the governor, they also presented Paul to him. ³⁴When the governor had read it, he asked what province he was from. When he understood that he was from Cilicia, he said, ³⁵“I will hear you fully when your accusers also arrive.” He commanded that he be kept in Herod’s palace.