¹Three days after Festus arrived, he went up from Caesarea to Jerusalem.

²There the chief priests and the Jewish leaders came to him and brought their charges against Paul.

³They tried very hard to get Festus to bring Paul to Jerusalem as a favor to them. They asked for this because they were planning to hide and try to kill Paul along the way.

⁴Festus answered, “Paul is being held at Caesarea, and I’ll be going there soon myself.

⁵Some of your leaders can come with me, and if the man has done anything wrong, they can charge him there.”

⁶Festus spent eight or ten days in Jerusalem with them, and then he went down to Caesarea. The next day he called the court together and ordered Paul to be brought before him.

⁷When Paul came in, the Jews who’d come from Jerusalem crowded around him, making many serious charges against him. But they couldn’t prove that any of them were true.

⁸Then Paul spoke up for himself. He said, “I haven’t done anything wrong against the law of the Jews or their temple, and I haven’t done anything wrong against Caesar.”

⁹But Festus wanted to do the Jews a favor, so he asked Paul, “Are you willing to go up to Jerusalem and face these accusations?”

¹⁰Paul answered, “I’m now standing in Caesar’s court. That’s where I should be put on trial, because I haven’t done anything wrong to the Jews. You know that yourself very well.

¹¹If I’m guilty of anything worthy of death, I’m prepared to die. But no one has the right to hand me over to these Jews to face false charges. I appeal to Caesar!”

¹²Festus talked this over with the members of his court. Then he said, “You have appealed to Caesar. To Caesar you will go!”

¹³A few days later King Agrippa and Bernice came to Caesarea to welcome Festus.

¹⁴They were there for several days, and that gave Festus a chance to speak with the king about Paul’s case. He told him, “There’s a man here that Felix left as a prisoner.

¹⁵When I went to Jerusalem, the Jewish chief priests and the elders brought charges against him. They wanted me to declare him guilty.

¹⁶“I told them that’s not the way Romans do things. We don’t judge anyone before they’ve had the chance to face the people bringing charges against them and answer for themselves.

¹⁷When the Jewish leaders came back with me, I didn’t waste any time. I called the court together the next day and ordered the man to be brought in.

¹⁸When the leaders got up to speak, they didn’t charge him with any of the crimes I expected.

¹⁹Instead, they argued with him about their own beliefs and about a man named Jesus. They said he was dead, but Paul claimed he was alive.

²⁰I had no idea how to look into such matters. So I asked Paul if he’d be willing to go to Jerusalem to stand trial there on these charges.

²¹But he made an appeal to have Emperor Nero decide his case. So I ordered him to be held until I could send him to Caesar.”

²²Then Agrippa told Festus, “I would like to hear the man myself.”

Festus replied, “You will hear him tomorrow.”

²³The next day Agrippa and Bernice made a grand entrance into the courtroom. The highest-ranking military officers and the most important leaders of the city all came in with them. Festus gave a command and Paul was brought in.

²⁴Festus said, “King Agrippa and everyone else here, take a good look at this man! A large number of Jews have come to me about him in Jerusalem and also here in Caesarea. They keep shouting that he should be put to death.

²⁵I’ve found that he hasn’t done anything worthy of death. But he has made an appeal to the Emperor, so I’ve decided to send him to Rome.

²⁶But I don’t know exactly what to write about him to His Majesty. So I’ve brought him here today so that all of you—and especially you, King Agrippa—can listen to him. I hope that because of this hearing, I can figure out something to write about his case.

²⁷It doesn’t make sense to send a prisoner on to Rome without listing any charges against him.”