Acts 25
1 Three days after taking charge of the province, Festus went up from Caesarea to Jerusalem.
2 The chief priests and the leading men of the Jews brought their accusations against Paul to him and kept urging him.
3 They asked him, as a favor against Paul, to have him brought to Jerusalem, while they were preparing an ambush to kill him on the way.
4 Festus, however, replied that Paul was being held in custody at Caesarea and that he himself would be leaving there shortly.
5 He said, “So let those among you who have authority come down with me, and if there is anything wrong with this man, let them accuse him.”
6 After spending no more than eight or ten days among them, he went down to Caesarea. The next day, he took his seat on the tribunal and ordered Paul to be brought in.
7 When he arrived, the Jews who had come down from Jerusalem surrounded him, bringing many serious accusations against him that they could not prove.
8 Paul defended himself: “I have done nothing wrong against the law of the Jews, the temple, or Caesar.”
9 Festus, wanting to do the Jews a favor, replied to Paul: “Are you willing to go up to Jerusalem and be judged there about these things before me?”
10 Paul said, “I am standing before Caesar’s tribunal, where I must be judged. I have done the Jews no wrong, as you know very well.
11 “If, then, I am guilty and have done something deserving death, I do not refuse to die. But if there is nothing to the charges these people bring against me, no one can hand me over to them. I appeal to Caesar.”
12 Then Festus, after conferring with the council, replied, “You have appealed to Caesar; to Caesar you will go.”
13 Some days later, King Agrippa and Bernice arrived in Caesarea to pay their respects to Festus.
14 As they were staying there many days, Festus laid Paul’s case before the king: “There is a man Felix left in custody.
15 When I was in Jerusalem, the chief priests and the elders of the Jews brought charges against him, asking for his condemnation.
16 I replied that it is not Roman custom to hand anyone over before the accused can face his accusers and be given an opportunity to defend himself against the charge.
17 So when they came here, I made no delay. The next day I took my seat on the tribunal and ordered the man to be brought in.
18 When his accusers stood around him, they brought no charge about the evils I had suspected.
19 Instead, they had some disputes with him about their own religion and about a certain Jesus who had died, whom Paul claimed was alive.
20 At a loss as to how to investigate these matters, I asked whether he was willing to go to Jerusalem and be judged there about them.
21 But since Paul appealed to remain in custody until the decision of Augustus, I ordered him kept in custody until I could send him to Caesar.”
22 Agrippa said to Festus, “I would like to hear the man myself, too.” He replied, “Tomorrow you will hear him.”
23 The next day Agrippa and Bernice came with great pomp and entered the audience hall with the commanders and the most prominent men of the city. At Festus’s order, Paul was brought in.
24 Festus said, “King Agrippa, and all you men here with us, you see this man. The whole crowd of Jews has appealed to me about him, both in Jerusalem and here, shouting that he must not live any longer.
25 “But I found that he had done nothing deserving death. Yet since he himself appealed to Augustus, I decided to send him.
26 I have nothing definite to write to the sovereign about him. So I have brought him before you, and especially before you, King Agrippa, so that after this examination I may have something to write.
27 For it seems senseless to me to send a prisoner without also stating the charges against him.”
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