When the Sabbath day came, we went outside the gates of the city to the nearby river, for there appeared to be a house of prayer and worship there. Sitting on the riverbank we struck up a conversation with some of the women who had gathered there.
Some of the Jews who had opposed Paul and Barnabas in Antioch and Iconium arrived and stirred up the crowd against them. They stoned Paul and dragged his body outside the city and left him for dead.
When he came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, he went into the synagogue, as he always did on the Sabbath. When Jesus came to the front to read the Scriptures, he was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found where it is written,
Yet Paul and Barnabas did not back down. Filled with courage, they boldly replied, “We were compelled to bring God’s message first to you Jews. But seeing you’ve rejected this message and refuse to embrace eternal life, we will focus instead on the nations and offer it to them.
And the same persecutions and difficulties I have endured, you have also endured. Yes, you know all about what I had to suffer while in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. You’re aware of all the persecution I endured there; yet the Lord delivered me from every single one of them!