17 “Then when I returned to Yerusalem and was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance 18 and saw the master telling me, ‘Get out of Yerusalem in a hurry because they won’t accept what you’re teaching them about me.’ 19 ‘Master,’ I replied, ‘they know that previously I was the one imprisoning and beating the people who believed in you, 20 and when Stephen was killed after teaching about you, it was me standing there and cheering on the ones executing him as I held their coats for them.’ 21 Then the master told me, ‘Get going now because I’m sending you away to the non-Jews.’ ”

22 Until this point in his message, the crowd had been listening to Paul, but now they started shouting, “Do away with this man! He doesn’t deserve to live in this world!” 23 Then they yelled and threw some of their clothes down onto the ground and threw dust up into the air. 24 So the commander ordered Paul to be brought inside into barracks and ordered that he be flogged and interrogated to determine what he’d done that would make the crowd react like that. 25 But as they strapped him down and stretched him out for the flogging, Paul asked the centurion standing there, “It is legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who hasn’t even been tried?”

26 When he heard that, the centurion went to the commander and reported, “How are we going to handle this, because this man is a Roman citizen?”

27 So the commander went in to where Paul was and asked him, “Tell me the truth. Are you a Roman citizen?”

“Yes I am,” said Paul.

28 “Yeah, and I paid a lot for mine as well,” mocked the commander.

“Actually mine is through birth,” Paul responded.

29 At this point, the soldiers who were about to interrogate Paul left the room, and even the commander was now afraid after learning that he had had a Roman citizen tied down to be flogged.