Acts 27:18-32

Because we were being severely battered by the storm, they began to jettison the cargo the next day. On the third day, they threw the ship’s tackle overboard with their own hands. For many days neither sun nor stars appeared, and the severe storm kept raging. Finally all hope was fading that we would be saved. Since they had been without food for a long time, Paul then stood up among them and said, “You men should have followed my advice not to sail from Crete and sustain this damage and loss. Now I urge you to take courage, because there will be no loss of any of your lives, but only of the ship. For last night an angel of the God I belong to and serve stood by me and said, ‘Don’t be afraid, Paul. It is necessary for you to appear before Caesar. And indeed, God has graciously given you all those who are sailing with you.’ So take courage, men, because I believe God that it will be just the way it was told to me. But we have to run aground on some island.” When the fourteenth night came, we were drifting in the Adriatic Sea, and about midnight the sailors thought they were approaching land. They took soundings and found it to be a hundred twenty feet deep; when they had sailed a little farther and sounded again, they found it to be ninety feet deep. Then, fearing we might run aground on the rocks, they dropped four anchors from the stern and prayed for daylight to come. Some sailors tried to escape from the ship; they had let down the skiff into the sea, pretending that they were going to put out anchors from the bow. Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, “Unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved.” Then the soldiers cut the ropes holding the skiff and let it drop away.