Acts 21 - Plain English Version(PEV)

Luke, the man writing this story, went with Paul to Tyre

1We were very sad, but we had to say goodbye to the Christian leaders of Ephesus. Then Paul and the rest of us got on the ship, and we sailed to the island called Cos. The next day, we sailed to the island called Rhodes. And then, the next day, we sailed to the town called Patara, and we stopped there.

2That ship wasn’t going to Fonisha country, so we got off it and got on another ship.

3We sailed on that ship until we could see the island called Cyprus, and we went past it, on its south side, and we kept sailing until we got to Syria country. Then the ship stopped at a town called Tyre, and they started to unload it there.

Christians told Paul not to go to Jerusalem, but he kept going anyway

4While the ship was at Tyre for the workers to unload it, we got off it, and we found the Christians there, and we stayed with them for 7 days. God’s Holy Spirit told those Christians to tell Paul, “Don’t go to Jerusalem.” So they told him that, but Paul wanted to keep going to Jerusalem.

5The ship workers finished unloading the ship, and then it was time for it to leave, so we went back to the sea shore to get on the ship. All the Christian men, and their wives and kids, they all went with us to the sea shore. We all got down on our knees there on the sand, to show respect to God, and we prayed.

6After that, we said goodbye to those other Christians, then we got on the ship, and the others went back to their homes.

Paul left Tyre and went to Caesarea

7We left Tyre on that ship, and we sailed to a town called Tolemayis. There were Christians in that town too, so we went and said hello to them, and we stayed with them that night.

8The next day, we got back on the ship, and we left Tolemayis and sailed to the town called Caesarea. We left the ship there and went to Philip’s place, and we stayed with him. He was a man that was always telling other people how to become followers of Jesus. (A few years before this, the Christians in Jerusalem picked 7 men to take care of the Christian widows, and Philip was one of those men.

26Paul listened to everything they said, and he agreed to do that ceremony with those 4 men. The next day, he got them together, and they started to do the ceremony to make themselves clean. After that, Paul went to God’s ceremony house, and he told the leader of the Jewish ceremonies the date they will finish that ceremony and give animals to God for each of them, the way they do in Jewish culture.

Some Jews grabbed Paul

27-29Paul and the other 4 men had to do that ceremony for 7 days to make themselves clean. Just before it finished, Paul walked along the road with a man that was not a Jew. His name was Trofimus. Some Jewish people from Asia country saw them together, and they thought that Paul took Trofimus into God’s ceremony house, and that was against their Jewish law. The next day, Paul went back to God’s ceremony house, and those Asia Jews saw him there. They called out to the other Jews there. They shouted, “You Jewish men, come and help us punish this man. This is the man that teaches people everywhere to rubbish us Jewish people, and our law, and he tells them not to respect this ceremony house. He even brought a man that is not a Jew into it, so now it is not clean any more.” Then all those Jewish people got angry with Paul, and they grabbed him.

30A lot of people everywhere in that city heard that there was trouble in God’s ceremony house, and they ran there. They all grabbed Paul and dragged him outside. Then straight away, the guards shut the gates of God’s ceremony house.

Roman soldiers stopped the mob from killing Paul

31That mob started hitting Paul, trying to kill him. Somebody went to the big Roman boss and said, “The people in Jerusalem are going wild.”

32So he quickly got a big mob of soldiers, and some boss soldiers, and they all ran to the mob that was hitting Paul. The mob saw the Roman soldiers and their big boss, so they stopped hitting Paul.

The soldiers took Paul to their big house

33Then the big boss told his soldiers to grab Paul and tie him up with 2 chains. Then he asked that mob, “Who is this man, and what did he do?”

34Some of the people there started shouting one thing, and some of them started shouting something else, and they kept on shouting really loud. There was too much noise, and the big boss soldier couldn’t understand them. So he told the soldiers, “Take him into your big house.”

35Then the soldiers took Paul away, and a lot of people followed them. Those people were trying to hit Paul all the time. The soldiers got to the steps of their big house, and the boss told them to carry Paul up the steps into their house.

36The mob kept on shouting, “Kill him. Kill him.”

37The soldiers started to take him into their house, but Paul talked to the boss in the Greek language. He said, “Can I talk to you?”

The boss said, “Can you talk Greek?

38I reckon you are that man from Egypt country, that fights against us Romans. You got lots of other men to join you, and you took 4,000 of those men to the desert to get ready to fight us. We call you mob the Murderers, because you are always killing people. Am I right? You are that man from Egypt, right?”

39Paul said, “I’m not that man. I am a Jew from Tarsus, and Tarsus is an important town in Cilicia country. Please, can I talk to these people?”

40The boss said, “All right. You can talk to them.”

So Paul stood on the steps and held up his hand to get everyone to be quiet, and after they all stopped shouting, Paul talked to them in their own language, called Hebrew.