When the Sabbath day came, we went outside the gates of the city to the nearby river, for there appeared to be a house of prayer and worship there. Sitting on the riverbank we struck up a conversation with some of the women who had gathered there. One of them was Lydia, a businesswoman from the city of Thyatira who was a dealer of exquisite purple cloth and a Jewish convert. While Paul shared the good news with her, God opened her heart to receive Paul’s message. She devoted herself to the Lord, and we baptized her and her entire family. Afterward she urged us to stay in her home, saying, “Since I am now a believer in the Lord, come and stay in my house.” So we were persuaded to stay there.
One day, as we were going to the house of prayer, we encountered a young slave girl who had an evil spirit of divination, the spirit of Python. She had earned great profits for her owners by being a fortune-teller.
She kept following us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Great High God, and they’re telling us how to be saved!”
Day after day she continued to do this, until Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit indwelling her, “I command you in the name of Jesus, the Anointed One, to come out of her, now!” At that very moment, the spirit came out of her!
When her owners realized that their potential of making profit had vanished, they forcefully seized Paul and Silas and dragged them off to the city square to face the authorities.
When they appeared before the Roman soldiers and magistrates, the slave owners leveled accusations against them, saying, “These Jews are troublemakers. They’re throwing our city into confusion. They’re pushing their Jewish religion down our throats. It’s wrong and unlawful for them to promote these Jewish ways, for we are Romans living in a Roman colony.”
A great crowd gathered, and all the people joined in to come against them. The Roman officials ordered that Paul and Silas be stripped of their garments and beaten with rods on their bare backs.
After they were severely beaten, they were thrown into prison and the jailer was commanded to guard them securely. So the jailer placed them in the innermost cell of the prison and had their feet bound and chained.
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