There he came across a Jew called Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently arrived from Italy with his wife Priscilla, as Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul accosted them,
Some of those who belonged to the so-called synagogue of the Libyans, the Cyrenians, and the Alexandrians, as well as to that of the Cilicians and Asiatics, started a dispute with Stephen,
"Write your vision in a book, and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and Smyrna and Pergamum and Thyatira and Sardis and Philadelphia and Laodicea."
Now I would like you to know about the distress which befell me in Asia, brothers. I was crushed, crushed far more than I could stand, so much so that I despaired even of life;
This was because Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus, to avoid any loss of time in Asia; he wanted to reach Jerusalem, if possible, by the day of Pentecost.
Now the danger is not only that we will have our trade discredited but that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will fall into contempt and that she will be degraded from her majestic glory, she whom all Asia and the wide world worship."
"Listen, brothers and fathers," said Stephen. "The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was still in Mesopotamia, before ever he stayed in Haran,
His company as far as Asia consisted of Sopater of Beroea (the son of Pyrrhus), Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessalonica, Gaius of Derbe, Timotheus, and Tychicus and Trophimus from Asia.
and it was in presenting these that I was found within the temple. I was ceremonially pure, I was not mixed up in any mob or riot; no, the trouble was caused by some Jews from Asia,
Embarking in an Andramyttian ship which was bound for the Asiatic seaports, we set sail, accompanied by a Macedonian from Thessalonica called Aristarchus.