Bible Verses About Paul

Therefore I advise you to take some food; you need it for your own survival. For not one of you will lose so much as a hair from his head.”

When he had said this, he took bread, said the b’rakhah to God in front of everyone, broke it and began to eat.

With courage restored, they all ate some food themselves.

Altogether there were 276 of us on board the ship.

After they had eaten all they wanted, they lightened the ship by dumping the grain into the sea.

When day broke, they didn’t recognize the land; but they noticed a bay with a sand beach, where they decided to run the ship aground if they could.

So they cut away the anchors and left them in the sea; at the same time, they loosened the ropes that held the rudders out of the water. Then they hoisted the foresail to the wind and headed for the beach.

But they encountered a place where two currents meet, and ran the vessel aground on the sandbar there. The bow stuck and would not move, while the pounding of the surf began to break up the stern.

At this point the soldiers’ thought was to kill the prisoners, so that none of them would swim off and escape.

But the officer, wanting to save Sha’ul, kept them from carrying out their plan. He ordered those who could swim to throw themselves overboard first and head for shore,

and the rest to use planks or whatever they could find from the ship. Thus it was that everyone reached land safely.

After our escape, we learned that the island was called Malta.

Its people showed extraordinary kindness — it was cold and it had started to rain, so they lit a bonfire and welcomed us all.

Sha’ul had gathered a bundle of sticks and was adding them to the fire, when a poisonous snake, driven out by the heat, fastened itself to his hand.

The islanders saw the creature hanging from Sha’ul’s hand and said to one another, “This man must be a murderer. Even though he escaped the sea, justice has not allowed him to live.”

But he shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no harm.

They waited, expecting him to swell up or suddenly fall down dead; but after waiting a long time and seeing that nothing amiss was happening to him, they reversed their opinion and said he was a god.

Nearby were lands belonging to the governor of the island, whose name was Publius. He received us in a friendly manner and put us up for three days.

Now it so happened that Publius’ father was lying in bed, sick with fever attacks and dysentery. Sha’ul went in to him, prayed, placed his hands on him and healed him.

After this happened, the rest of those on the island who had ailments came and were healed.

They heaped honors on us; and when the time came for us to sail, they provided the supplies we needed.

After three months, we sailed away on a ship from Alexandria called “Twin Gods,” which had passed the winter at the island.

We landed at Syracuse and stayed three days.

From there, we arrived at Rhegium by tacking; but after one day, a south wind sprang up; so we made it to Puteoli the second day.

There we found brothers who invited us to spend a week with them. And so we went on toward Rome.