Acts 19:1-20

1While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul traveled through the interior regions and came to Ephesus. He found some disciples

2and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” “No,” they told him, “we haven’t even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”

3“Into what then were you baptized?” he asked them. “Into John’s baptism,” they replied.

4Paul said, “John baptized with a baptism of repentance, telling the people that they should believe in the one who would come after him, that is, in Jesus.”

5When they heard this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus.

6And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began to speak in tongues and to prophesy.

7Now there were about twelve men in all.

8Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly over a period of three months, arguing and persuading them about the kingdom of God.

9But when some became hardened and would not believe, slandering the Way in front of the crowd, he withdrew from them, taking the disciples, and conducted discussions every day in the lecture hall of Tyrannus.

10This went on for two years, so that all the residents of Asia, both Jews and Greeks, heard the word of the Lord.

11God was performing extraordinary miracles by Paul’s hands,

12so that even facecloths or aprons that had touched his skin were brought to the sick, and the diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them.

13Now some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists also attempted to pronounce the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I command you by the Jesus that Paul preaches!”

14Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish high priest, were doing this.

15The evil spirit answered them, “I know Jesus, and I recognize Paul — but who are you?”

16Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them, overpowered them all, and prevailed against them, so that they ran out of that house naked and wounded.

17When this became known to everyone who lived in Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks, they became afraid, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high esteem.

18And many who had become believers came confessing and disclosing their practices,

19while many of those who had practiced magic collected their books and burned them in front of everyone. So they calculated their value and found it to be fifty thousand pieces of silver.

20In this way the word of the Lord spread and prevailed.