Acts 25:1-12

1Festus then, having arrived in 1the province, three days later went up to Jerusalem from 2Caesarea. 2And the chief priests and the leading men of the Jews 3brought charges against Paul, and they were urging him, 3requesting a 4concession against 5Paul, that he might 6have him brought to Jerusalem (at the same time, 7setting an ambush to kill him on the way). 4Festus then 8answered that Paul 9was being kept in custody at 10Caesarea and that he himself was about to leave shortly. 5“Therefore,” he said, “let the influential men among you 11go there with me, and if there is anything wrong 12about the man, let them 13prosecute him.”

6After he had spent not more than eight or ten days among them, he went down to 14Caesarea, and on the next day he took his seat on 15the tribunal and ordered Paul to be brought. 7After Paul arrived, the Jews who had come down from Jerusalem stood around him, bringing 16many and serious charges against him 17which they could not prove, 8while Paul said in his own defense, “18I have committed no offense either against the Law of the Jews or against the temple or against Caesar.” 9But Festus, 19wishing to do the Jews a favor, answered Paul and said, “20Are you willing to go up to Jerusalem and 21stand trial before me on these charges?” 10But Paul said, “I am standing before Caesar’s 22tribunal, where I ought to be tried. I have done no wrong to the Jews, as you also very well know. 11If, then, I am a wrongdoer and have committed anything worthy of death, I do not refuse to die; but if none of those things is true of which these men accuse me, no one can hand me over to them. I 23appeal to Caesar.” 12Then when Festus had conferred with 24his council, he answered, “You have appealed to Caesar, to Caesar you shall go.”