27
“A Hurricane-Force Wind...Swept Down from the Island”
1 Now when it was decided that we were to sail for Italy, they had Paul and some other prisoners placed in the custody of a Roman officer named Julius, who belonged to the Imperial Regiment.
2 Boarding a ship from the Aegean seaport Adramyttium, which was about to sail to various ports along the coast of the province of Asia, we put out to sea, accompanied by Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica.
3 The next day we put in at Sidon, and Julius, showing Paul great kindness, allowed him to go and visit his friends, so that they could care for his needs.
4 From there having put out to sea, we sailed on the sheltered side of the island of Cyprus, because the winds were against us.
5 After sailing, next, through the open sea off Cilicia and Pamphylia, we put in at the city of Myra in the province of Lycia.
6 There the officer found an Alexandrian ship bound for Italy and put us aboard it.
7 Making slow headway for a good many days, and having arrived off the city of Cnidus only with difficulty, since the wind wouldn’t allow us to go any further in that direction, we sailed on the sheltered side of the island of Crete, passing by Cape Salome.
8 Sailing along the coast of Crete only with difficulty, we came to a place called Fair Havens, not far at all from which was the town of Lasea.
9 Now since we had lost quite a bit of time and the voyage was now dangerous on account of the fact that it was so late in the year, the Day of Atonement having already come and gone, Paul kept warning them,
10 “I can see, men, that this voyage will take place only with disaster and heavy loss, not only of the cargo and the ship, but of our lives, too.”
11 The army officer decided to heed the counsel, however, of the captain and the ship’s owner, rather than the things Paul himself was saying.
12 Unsuitable as the harbor was, moreover, for wintering, the majority of the men favored putting out to sea from there, in the hope of somehow making it to Phoenix, a harbor on Crete that faces southwest and northwest, and spending the winter there.
13 Now when a soft wind began to blow in from the south, they thought that they had their goal within their grasp, and so they pulled up the anchor and began sailing along the coast of Crete, staying as close to the shore as possible.
14 Not long after this, however, a hurricane-force wind from the northeast, the one called a “northeaster,” swept down from the island.
15 When the ship was forced off course and couldn’t be turned head-on into the wind, we gave way to it and allowed the ship to be driven along.
16 As we sailed along the sheltered side of a small island, called Cauda, we were barely able to get the ship’s small tow-behind rowboat under control.
17 When the crew had pulled it aboard, they used cables to brace the ship. Afraid that they would run aground on the treacherous sandbanks off the coast of Libya, they lowered the sea anchor and in this way allowed the ship to be driven along.
18 We were being tossed about in the storm so violently that on the next day the crew began throwing some of the ship’s cargo overboard.
19 On the third day, they tossed out into the sea some of the ship’s equipment, with their own hands.
20 Now when there did not appear for many days either the sun or the stars, and with such a fierce storm continuing to batter us, at last we gave up any and all hope of being saved.
21 Since so few of them had any desire at all to eat, at that time, having stood up where they could all see him, Paul said, “Men, although ᵖyou should have heeded my advice not to put out to sea from Crete, in which case you would have spared yourselves this disaster and loss,
22 at the present moment I urge ᵖyou to take courage, because not a single one of you will be lost; only the ship will be lost.
23 I say this because an angel sent by the very God to whom I belong and whom I serve appeared in front of me last night
24 and said, ‘Don’t be afraid, Paul. It is God’s will for ˢyou to appear before the Emperor, and God in his kindness has decided to grant your request and spare the lives of all those who are sailing with you.’
25 That is why ᵖyou must take courage, men. For I have faith in God and trust that things will turn out exactly as I’ve been told.
26 We will have to run aground, though, on some island.”
27 On the fourteenth night, as we were drifting about on the Adriatic Sea, about midnight the crew started to think that they were nearing land.
28 Dropping a weighted line into the water, they found that the water was a hundred and twenty feet deep. After sailing only a short distance farther and again dropping the line into the water, they found that it was now only ninety feet deep.
29 Afraid that it was some rocky place on which we would run aground, they threw out four anchors from the back of the ship, and began praying for daylight.
30 When some of the crew, however, tried to escape from the ship and had lowered the small tow-behind boat to the water, on the pretext of putting out more anchors, indeed from the front of the ship,
31 Paul said to the officer and the soldiers, “If these men don’t stay aboard the ship, you yourselves have of being saved no hope at all.”
32 Then the soldiers cut the ropes that held the small boat and allowed it to drift away.
33 Now right up to daybreak Paul kept urging everyone to eat some food, saying, “It is a good fourteen days today that ᵖyou have continued in such anxious suspense, without any desire at all for food; you haven’t eaten a thing.
34 That is why I am urging ᵖyou to eat something. Indeed, this is necessary for ᵖyour survival. Not one of you, you see, will lose so much as a hair from his head.”
35 After saying these things, then, and taking some bread, Paul gave thanks to God in front of them all, and, breaking the bread, began to eat.
36 At that, all of them now feeling very encouraged, they, too, ate some food themselves.
37 (Altogether there were two hundred seventy-six of us on board the ship.)
38 When everyone had eaten as much as they wanted, the crew began to lighten the ship by dumping the grain into the sea.
39 When day came, the coastline they didn’t recognize. They noticed, though, a certain bay, with a beach, on which they planned, if they could, to run the ship ashore.
40 Cutting the anchors loose, they let them sink in the sea, at the same time untying the ropes that held the steering oars out of the water. Then hoisting the small sail at the front of the ship into the wind, they steered the ship toward the beach.
41 Upon encountering a place where two opposing currents were flowing together, however, they ran the ship aground. While the front part of the ship, on the one hand, got stuck and couldn’t move, the back of the ship was being broken to pieces by the force of the waves.
42 At this point the soldiers themselves had it in mind to kill the prisoners so that none of them could swim away and escape.
43 The officer, however, wanting to save Paul’s life, kept them from doing this. He ordered those who could swim to throw themselves overboard first and make for the shore,
44 and the rest to follow, some on planks and others on various pieces of the ship. And so it came to pass that each and every one of them was brought safely to shore.