But alas for you, Teachers of the Law and Pharisees, hypocrites that you are! You turn the key of the Kingdom of Heaven in men's faces. For you do not go in yourselves, nor yet allow those who try to go in to do so.
But the Jews incited the women of position who worshiped with them, and the leading men of the town, and started a persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their neighborhood.
Presently, however, there came some Jews from Antioch, and Iconium who, after they had won over the people, stoned Paul, and dragged him out of the town, thinking him to be dead.
But the Jews, becoming jealous, engaged some worthless fellows from the streets, and, getting a mob together, kept the city in an uproar. They attacked Jason's house, with the intention of bringing Paul and Silas before the Popular Assembly;
However, as they set themselves against him and became abusive, Paul shook his clothes in protest and said to them: "Your blood be on your own heads. My conscience is clear. From this time forward I shall go to the Gentiles."
Some of them, however, hardened their hears and refused to believe, denouncing the Cause before the people. So Paul left them and withdrew his disciples, and gave daily addresses in the lecture-hall of Tyrannus.
My journeys have been many. I have been through dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own people, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in towns, dangers in the country, dangers on the sea, dangers among false Brothers.
Feelings of envy, drunkenness, revelry, and the like. And I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who indulge in such things will have no place in the Kingdom of God.
For they would prevent us from speaking to the Gentiles with a view to their Salvation, and thus are always 'filling up the measure of their iniquity.' But the Wrath of God has come upon them to the full!
as well as of my persecutions, and of the sufferings which I met with at Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. You know what persecutions I underwent; and yet the Lord brought me safe out of all!
Do you suppose there is no meaning in the passage of Scripture which asks--'Is envy to result from the longings of the Spirit which God has implanted within you?'
But these men malign whatever they do not understand; while they use such things as they know by instinct (like the animals that have no reason) for their own corruption.