Daily Bible CEV May 15 Scroll

Paul Is Tried by the Council

Acts 22 ³⁰The next day the commander wanted to know the real reason why the Jewish leaders had brought charges against Paul. So he had Paul's chains removed, and he ordered the chief priests and the whole council to meet. Then he had Paul led in and made him stand in front of them.
Acts 23 Paul looked straight at the council members and said, "My friends, to this day I have served God with a clear conscience!"

²Then Ananias the high priest ordered the men standing beside Paul to hit him on the mouth. ³Paul turned to the high priest and said, "You whitewashed wall! God will hit you. You sit there to judge me by the Law of Moses. But at the same time you order men to break the Law by hitting me."

⁴The men standing beside Paul asked, "Don't you know you are insulting God's high priest?"

⁵Paul replied, "Oh! I didn't know he was the high priest. The Scriptures do tell us not to speak evil about a leader of our people."

⁶When Paul saw that some of the council members were Sadducees and others were Pharisees, he shouted, "My friends, I am a Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee. I am on trial simply because I believe that the dead will be raised to life."

⁷As soon as Paul said this, the Pharisees and the Sadducees got into a big argument, and the council members started taking sides. ⁸The Sadducees do not believe in angels or spirits or that the dead will rise to life. But the Pharisees believe in all of these, ⁹and so there was a lot of shouting. Some of the teachers of the Law of Moses were Pharisees. Finally, they became angry and said, "We don't find anything wrong with this man. Maybe a spirit or an angel really did speak to him."

¹⁰The argument became fierce, and the commander was afraid that Paul would be pulled apart. So he ordered the soldiers to go in and rescue Paul. Then they took him back into the fortress.

¹¹That night the Lord stood beside Paul and said, "Don't worry! Just as you have told others about me in Jerusalem, you must also tell about me in Rome."

A Plot To Kill Paul

^12-13The next morning more than forty Jewish men got together and vowed that they would not eat or drink anything until they had killed Paul. ¹⁴Then some of them went to the chief priests and the nation's leaders and said, "We have promised God that we would not eat a thing until we have killed Paul. ¹⁵You and everyone in the council must go to the commander and pretend that you want to find out more about the charges against Paul. Ask for him to be brought before your court. Meanwhile, we will be waiting to kill him before he gets there."

¹⁶When Paul's nephew heard about the plot, he went to the fortress and told Paul about it. ¹⁷So Paul said to one of the army officers, "Take this young man to the commander. He has something to tell him."

¹⁸The officer took him to the commander and said, "The prisoner named Paul asked me to bring this young man to you, because he has something to tell you."

¹⁹The commander took the young man aside and asked him in private, "What do you want to tell me?"

²⁰He answered, "Some men are planning to ask you to bring Paul down to the Jewish council tomorrow. They will claim that they want to find out more about him. ²¹But please don't do what they say. More than forty men are going to attack Paul. They have made a vow not to eat or drink anything until they have killed him. Even now they are waiting to hear what you decide."

²²The commander sent the young man away after saying to him, "Don't let anyone know that you told me this."

A Woman Is Murdered

Judges 19 Before kings ruled Israel, a Levite was living deep in the hill country of the Ephraim tribe. He married a woman from Bethlehem in Judah, ²but she was unfaithful and went back to live with her family in Bethlehem.

Four months later ³her husband decided to try and talk her into coming back. So he went to Bethlehem, taking along a servant and two donkeys. He talked with his wife, and she invited him into her family's home. Her father was glad to see him ⁴and did not want him to leave. So the man stayed three days, eating and drinking with his father-in-law.

⁵When everyone got up on the fourth day, the Levite started getting ready to go home. But his father-in-law said, "Don't leave until you have a bite to eat. You'll need strength for your journey."

⁶The two men sat down together and ate a big meal. "Come on," the man's father-in-law said. "Stay tonight and have a good time."

⁷The Levite tried to leave, but his father-in-law insisted, and he spent one more night. ⁸The fifth day, the man got up early to leave, but his wife's father said, "You need to keep up your strength! Why don't you leave right after lunch?" So the two of them started eating.

⁹Finally, the Levite got up from the meal, so he and his wife and servant could leave. "Look," his father-in-law said, "it's already late afternoon, and if you leave now, you won't get very far before dark. Stay with us one more night and enjoy yourself. Then you can get up early tomorrow morning and start home."

¹⁰But the Levite decided not to spend the night there again. He had the saddles put on his two donkeys, then he and his wife and servant traveled as far as Jebus, which is now called Jerusalem. ¹¹It was beginning to get dark, and the man's servant said, "Let's stop and spend the night in this town where the Jebusites live."

¹²"No," the Levite answered. "They aren't Israelites, and I refuse to spend the night there. We'll stop for the night at Gibeah, ¹³because we can make it to Gibeah or maybe even to Ramah before dark."

¹⁴They walked on and reached Gibeah in the territory of Benjamin just after sunset. ¹⁵They left the road and went into Gibeah. But the Levite couldn't find a house where anyone would let them spend the night, and they sat down in the open area just inside the town gates.

¹⁶Soon an old man came in through the gates on his way home from working in the fields. Most of the people who lived in Gibeah belonged to the tribe of Benjamin, but this man was originally from the hill country of Ephraim. ¹⁷He noticed that the Levite was just in town to spend the night. "Where are you going?" the old man asked. "Where did you come from?"

¹⁸"We've come from Bethlehem in Judah," the Levite answered. "We went there on a visit. Now we're going to the place where the LORD is worshiped, and later we will return to our home in the hill country of Ephraim. But no one here will let us spend the night in their home. ¹⁹We brought food for our donkeys and bread and wine for ourselves, so we don't need anything except a place to sleep."

²⁰The old man said, "You are welcome to spend the night in my home and to be my guest, but don't stay out here!"

²¹The old man brought them into his house and fed their donkeys. Then he and his guests washed their feet and began eating and drinking. ²²They were having a good time, when some worthless men of that town surrounded the house and started banging on the door and shouting, "A man came to your house tonight. Send him out, so we can have sex with him!"

²³The old man went outside and said, "My friends, please don't commit such a horrible crime against a man who is a guest in my house. ²⁴Let me send out my daughter instead. She's a virgin. And I'll even send out the man's wife. You can rape them or do whatever else you want, but please don't do such a horrible thing to this man."

²⁵The men refused to listen, so the Levite grabbed his wife and shoved her outside. The men raped her and abused her all night long. Finally, they let her go just before sunrise, ²⁶and it was almost daybreak when she went back to the house where her husband was staying. She collapsed at the door and lay there until sunrise.

²⁷About that time, her husband woke up and got ready to leave. He opened the door and went outside, where he found his wife lying at the door with her hands on the doorstep. ²⁸"Get up!" he said. "It's time to leave."

But his wife didn't move.

He lifted her body onto his donkey and left. ²⁹When he got home, he took a butcher knife and cut her body into twelve pieces. Then he told some messengers, "Take one piece to each tribe of Israel ³⁰and ask everyone if anything like this has ever happened since Israel left Egypt. Tell them to think about it, talk it over, and tell us what should be done."

Everyone who saw a piece of the body said, "This is horrible! Nothing like this has ever happened since the day Israel left Egypt."

Psalm 44
[A special psalm for the people of Korah and for the music leader.]
A Prayer for Help

¹Our God, our ancestors told us

what wonders you worked and we listened carefully.

²You chased off the nations

by causing them trouble with your powerful arm.

Then you let our ancestors take over their land.

³Their strength and weapons were not

what won the land and gave them victory!

You loved them and fought with your powerful arm

and your shining glory.

⁴You are my God and King,

and you give victory to the people of Jacob.

⁵By your great power, we knocked our enemies down

and stomped on them.

⁶I don't depend on my arrows or my sword to save me.

⁷But you saved us from our hateful enemies,

and you put them to shame.

⁸We boast about you, our God,

and we are always grateful.

⁹But now you have rejected us;

you don't lead us into battle, and we look foolish.

¹⁰You made us retreat,

and our enemies have taken everything we own.

¹¹You let us be slaughtered like sheep,

and you scattered us among the nations.

¹²You sold your people for little or nothing,

and you earned no profit.

¹³You made us look foolish to our neighbors,

and people who live nearby insult us and sneer.

¹⁴Foreigners joke about us and shake their heads.

¹⁵

I am embarrassed every day, and I blush with shame.

¹⁶But others mock and sneer,

as they watch my enemies take revenge on me.

¹⁷All of this has happened to us,

though we didn't forget you or break our agreement.

¹⁸We always kept you in mind and followed your teaching.

¹⁹But you crushed us, and you covered us

with deepest darkness where wild animals live.

²⁰We did not forget you

or lift our hands in prayer to foreign gods.

²¹You would have known it

because you discover every secret thought.

²²We face death all day for you.

We are like sheep on their way to be slaughtered.

²³Wake up! Do something, Lord!

Why are you sleeping? Don't desert us forever.

²⁴Why do you keep looking away?

Don't forget our sufferings and all of our troubles.

²⁵We are flat on the ground, holding on to the dust.

²⁶Do something! Help us! Show how kind you are

and come to our rescue.

These daily Bible readings from the Contemporary English Version (CEV) are published by BibleNetUSA. The web site and BibleCard® designs are by iCreative. BibleCard® images copyright iCreative. All rights reserved.