Acts 27:13-44
Acts 27:13-44 NCV
When a good wind began to blow from the south, the men on the ship thought, “This is the wind we wanted, and now we have it.” So they pulled up the anchor, and we sailed very close to the island of Crete. But then a very strong wind named the “northeaster” came from the island. The ship was caught in it and could not sail against it. So we stopped trying and let the wind carry us. When we went below a small island named Cauda, we were barely able to bring in the lifeboat. After the men took the lifeboat in, they tied ropes around the ship to hold it together. The men were afraid that the ship would hit the sandbanks of Syrtis, so they lowered the sail and let the wind carry the ship. The next day the storm was blowing us so hard that the men threw out some of the cargo. A day later with their own hands they threw out the ship’s equipment. When we could not see the sun or the stars for many days, and the storm was very bad, we lost all hope of being saved. After the men had gone without food for a long time, Paul stood up before them and said, “Men, you should have listened to me. You should not have sailed from Crete. Then you would not have all this trouble and loss. But now I tell you to cheer up because none of you will die. Only the ship will be lost. Last night an angel came to me from the God I belong to and worship. The angel said, ‘Paul, do not be afraid. You must stand before Caesar. And God has promised you that he will save the lives of everyone sailing with you.’ So men, have courage. I trust in God that everything will happen as his angel told me. But we will crash on an island.” On the fourteenth night we were still being carried around in the Adriatic Sea. About midnight the sailors thought we were close to land, so they lowered a rope with a weight on the end of it into the water. They found that the water was one hundred twenty feet deep. They went a little farther and lowered the rope again. It was ninety feet deep. The sailors were afraid that we would hit the rocks, so they threw four anchors into the water and prayed for daylight to come. Some of the sailors wanted to leave the ship, and they lowered the lifeboat, pretending they were throwing more anchors from the front of the ship. But Paul told the officer and the other soldiers, “If these men do not stay in the ship, your lives cannot be saved.” So the soldiers cut the ropes and let the lifeboat fall into the water. Just before dawn Paul began persuading all the people to eat something. He said, “For the past fourteen days you have been waiting and watching and not eating. Now I beg you to eat something. You need it to stay alive. None of you will lose even one hair off your heads.” After he said this, Paul took some bread and thanked God for it before all of them. He broke off a piece and began eating. They all felt better and started eating, too. There were two hundred seventy-six people on the ship. When they had eaten all they wanted, they began making the ship lighter by throwing the grain into the sea. When daylight came, the sailors saw land. They did not know what land it was, but they saw a bay with a beach and wanted to sail the ship to the beach if they could. So they cut the ropes to the anchors and left the anchors in the sea. At the same time, they untied the ropes that were holding the rudders. Then they raised the front sail into the wind and sailed toward the beach. But the ship hit a sandbank. The front of the ship stuck there and could not move, but the back of the ship began to break up from the big waves. The soldiers decided to kill the prisoners so none of them could swim away and escape. But Julius, the officer, wanted to let Paul live and did not allow the soldiers to kill the prisoners. Instead he ordered everyone who could swim to jump into the water first and swim to land. The rest were to follow using wooden boards or pieces of the ship. And this is how all the people made it safely to land.
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