27 When the seven days of the vow were almost over, some Jews from the province of Asia Minor noticed Paul in the temple. They stirred up the crowd and grabbed hold of him, 28 yelling out, “Men of Israel. Help us here. This is the man who’s been teaching all around the world against Israel and against Moses’ law and against this temple. What’s more he brought non-Jews here into the temple and so has defiled this holy place.” 29 (They said this because they had previously seen Trophimus from Ephesus in the city with Paul and had assumed that he had brought him into the temple.)

30 So now the whole city was in an uproar, and the crowds rushed in, grabbed Paul, and dragged him out of the temple and hurriedly closed the temple gates. 31 They were ready to kill Paul, but the commander of the Roman soldiers had heard that all Yerusalem was in an uproar. 32 Taking some soldiers and officers, he immediately ran down to the temple, and when the crowd saw the commander and the soldiers they stopped beating Paul. 33 The commander came close and took hold of Paul and ordered that he be tied up with a pair of chains while he tried to find out who he was and what he’d done wrong. 34 Various people in the crowd were shouting out different things, and not being able to make any sense of it because of all the commotion, the commander ordered that Paul be taken into the barracks. 35 When they got to the stairs, the soldiers had to lift him up above their heads because of the frenzy of the crowd, 36 because most of the people were following and shouting out, “Do away with him!”