Psalms 102:8

¹¹Punishing them often in all the synagogues, I tried to make them blaspheme. Being exceedingly enraged against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities.

¹²When it was day, some of the Jews banded together and bound themselves under a curse, saying that they would neither eat nor drink until they had killed Paul. ¹³There were more than forty people who had made this conspiracy. ¹⁴They came to the chief priests and the elders, and said, “We have bound ourselves under a great curse to taste nothing until we have killed Paul. ¹⁵Now therefore, you with the council inform the commanding officer that he should bring him down to you tomorrow, as though you were going to judge his case more exactly. We are ready to kill him before he comes near.”

¹⁶But Paul’s sister’s son heard they were lying in wait, and he came and entered into the barracks and told Paul. ¹⁷Paul summoned one of the centurions and said, “Bring this young man to the commanding officer, for he has something to tell him.”

¹⁸So he took him and brought him to the commanding officer and said, “Paul, the prisoner, summoned me and asked me to bring this young man to you. He has something to tell you.”

¹⁹The commanding officer took him by the hand, and going aside, asked him privately, “What is it that you have to tell me?”

²⁰He said, “The Jews have agreed to ask you to bring Paul down to the council tomorrow, as though intending to inquire somewhat more accurately concerning him. ²¹Therefore don’t yield to them, for more than forty men lie in wait for him, who have bound themselves under a curse to neither eat nor drink until they have killed him. Now they are ready, looking for the promise from you.”

²²So the commanding officer let the young man go, charging him, “Tell no one that you have revealed these things to me.”

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.

¹⁵You will leave your name for a curse to my chosen, and the Lord GOD will kill you. He will call his servants by another name,

⁹For the zeal of your house consumes me. The reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. ¹⁰When I wept and I fasted, that was to my reproach.

⁵⁴Now when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth.

¹¹But they were filled with rage, and talked with one another about what they might do to Jesus.

¹Why do the nations rage, and the peoples plot a vain thing?

²²A curse will be taken up about them by all the captives of Judah who are in Babylon, saying, ‘The LORD make you like Zedekiah and like Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire;’

⁵¹With which your enemies have mocked, LORD, with which they have mocked the footsteps of your anointed one.

³For even Christ didn’t please himself. But, as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.”