Acts 16 — Timothy joins the mission; Lydia and the Philippian jailer — Greek text and reception
Each card preserves the Greek reading and its textual and reception notes. This source provides a Greek study edition; Hebrew counterparts and Hebrew–Greek classifications are not supplied.
Acts 16 — Timothy joins the mission; Lydia and the Philippian jailer
Timothy and the journey toward Macedonia
Verse 16:1
Greek–English Translation
He also came to Derbe and Lystra. There was a disciple there named Timothy, the son of a believing Jewish woman, but of a Greek father.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: Timothy’s mother is explicitly called a believer; the father is identified as Greek, without an added statement about his faith or whether he was still living.
Verse 16:2
Greek–English Translation
He was well spoken of by the brothers in Lystra and Iconium.
Textual and Reception Notes
Verse 16:3
Greek–English Translation
Paul wanted him to go with him, and took him and circumcised him because of the Jews in those places, for they all knew that his father was Greek.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: The action and its stated local reason remain explicit beside chapter 15’s ruling for Gentiles; no harmonizing motive beyond this explanation is inserted.
Verse 16:4
Greek–English Translation
As they traveled through the cities, they handed on to them for observance the decisions made by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem.
Textual and Reception Notes
Verse 16:5
Greek–English Translation
So the Churches were strengthened in the faith and increased in number each day.
Textual and Reception Notes
Verse 16:6
Greek–English Translation
They passed through Phrygia and the Galatian region, having been prevented by the Holy Spirit from speaking the word in Asia.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: The exact geographical relation of Phrygia and the Galatian region is not resolved into a modern itinerary beyond the source’s words.
Verse 16:7
Greek–English Translation
When they came near Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: Spirit of Jesus is the selected full expression; it is not reduced to the Spirit or replaced with a different title. Evidence: SBL-ACTS-APP, 16:7 records the omission of Jesus in RP.
Verse 16:8
Greek–English Translation
Passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: Passing by can indicate bypassing Mysia as a mission destination rather than proving they crossed none of its territory.
Verse 16:9
Greek–English Translation
During the night a vision appeared to Paul: a Macedonian man was standing and urging him, saying, “Cross over to Macedonia and help us.”
Textual and Reception Notes
Verse 16:10
Greek–English Translation
When he had seen the vision, we immediately sought to go out to Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: The narrator’s first-person plural we begins here and is preserved. God is the selected calling subject; no named identification of the narrator is inserted into the verse.
Lydia’s household in Philippi
Verse 16:11
Greek–English Translation
We sailed from Troas and made a straight course to Samothrace, and on the next day to Neapolis,
Textual and Reception Notes
Verse 16:12
Greek–English Translation
and from there to Philippi, a leading city of that district of Macedonia and a colony. We stayed in that city for some days.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: The selected prōtē tēs meridos describes a first or leading city of the district; it is not the alternate grammatical reading city of the first district. Colony is explicitly retained without inserting an administrative reconstruction. Evidence: SBL-ACTS-APP, 16:12 lists prōtē tēs meridos with WH/Treg/NIV; the prōtēs meridos tēs wording in NA28 is marked em in that apparatus.
Verse 16:13
Greek–English Translation
On the Sabbath day we went outside the gate beside a river, where we thought there was a place of prayer. We sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: We thought is the selected verb, not where prayer was customarily made. Proseuchē can denote prayer or a place of prayer; the location sense is used here.
Verse 16:14
Greek–English Translation
A woman named Lydia, a seller of purple goods from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God, was listening. The Lord opened her heart to attend to what Paul was saying.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: Purple goods renders her trade without specifying an unmentioned fabric. Both Lydia’s listening and the Lord’s opening of her heart remain explicit.
Verse 16:15
Greek–English Translation
After she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me faithful to the Lord, come into my house and stay.” And she prevailed upon us.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: Household is not expanded into an age list. Pistē can describe believing or faithful; faithful is retained in Lydia’s appeal.
The slave girl freed and Paul and Silas imprisoned
Verse 16:16
Greek–English Translation
As we were going to the place of prayer, a slave girl with a spirit of divination met us. She brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: The Greek calls it a python spirit, a specific divinatory designation. Spirit of divination conveys the function explicitly shown by fortune-telling; her enslavement and her masters’ profit are retained.
Verse 16:17
Greek–English Translation
She followed Paul and us, crying out, “These men are servants of God Most High, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.”
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: To you is the selected pronoun. The Greek way lacks an article; English the gives the contextual phrase without claiming the grammar alone settles whether the speaker envisages one way among others. Servants represents the religious self-status term douloi in her declaration.
Verse 16:18
Greek–English Translation
She kept doing this for many days. Paul, greatly troubled, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” It came out that very hour.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: Greatly troubled can include annoyance or distress; the source does not state a separate psychological motive. The command addresses the spirit, not the girl as its supposed identity.
Verse 16:19
Greek–English Translation
When her masters saw that their hope of profit had gone out, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: Had gone out repeats the preceding spirit’s departure verb, now applied to the owners’ profit expectation.
Verse 16:20
Greek–English Translation
They brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are throwing our city into turmoil. They are Jews,
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: Their Jewish identity is part of the accusers’ speech; it is not the narrator’s explanation of criminal wrongdoing.
Verse 16:21
Greek–English Translation
and they proclaim customs that we, being Romans, are not permitted to accept or practice.”
Textual and Reception Notes
Verse 16:22
Greek–English Translation
The crowd joined the attack against them. The magistrates tore off their garments and ordered them to be beaten with rods.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: The tearing concerns Paul’s and Silas’s garments, followed by the order for rod-beating; no additional punishment procedure is invented.
Verse 16:23
Greek–English Translation
After inflicting many blows on them, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely.
Textual and Reception Notes
Verse 16:24
Greek–English Translation
Having received such an order, he put them in the inner prison and secured their feet in the stocks.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: Xylon is the wooden restraint, stocks, in this context, distinct from tree in execution descriptions.
The earthquake and the jailer’s household
Verse 16:25
Greek–English Translation
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, while the prisoners listened to them.
Textual and Reception Notes
Verse 16:26
Greek–English Translation
Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the jail’s foundations were shaken. At once all the doors opened, and everyone’s bonds were loosened.
Textual and Reception Notes
Verse 16:27
Greek–English Translation
The jailer awoke and saw the prison doors open. He drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing the prisoners had escaped.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: The reason given is his supposition that the prisoners escaped; no suicide technique or further motive is added.
Verse 16:28
Greek–English Translation
But Paul cried with a loud voice, “Do yourself no harm, for we are all here.”
Textual and Reception Notes
Verse 16:29
Greek–English Translation
He called for lights, rushed inside, and fell trembling before Paul and Silas.
Textual and Reception Notes
Verse 16:30
Greek–English Translation
He brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: Kyrioi is the human honorific sirs, distinct from Lord Jesus in the answer. Saved retains the shared rescue-and-salvation verb without preempting how the jailer understood it at that moment.
Verse 16:31
Greek–English Translation
They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: Lord Jesus is the selected title, without an added Christ. The household promise remains explicit and is followed by the word’s proclamation to all in 16:32.
Verse 16:32
Greek–English Translation
They spoke the word of the Lord to him, together with all who were in his house.
Textual and Reception Notes
Verse 16:33
Greek–English Translation
At that very hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds. Immediately he and all his people were baptized.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: Washed their wounds renders washing them from the blows. All his people preserves the household designation without specifying the members’ ages.
Verse 16:34
Greek–English Translation
He brought them up into his house, set food before them, and rejoiced with his whole household, having believed in God.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: Having believed is grammatically singular, referring to the jailer. With his whole household is attached here to rejoiced; the wording does not erase the household’s hearing and baptism in the preceding verses.
The magistrates release Paul and Silas
Verse 16:35
Greek–English Translation
When day came, the magistrates sent the lictors, saying, “Release those men.”
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: Rhabdouchoi are rod-bearing official attendants, rendered lictors in this Roman civic setting; they are distinct from the magistrates.
Verse 16:36
Greek–English Translation
The jailer reported these words to Paul: “The magistrates have sent word for you to be released. Now come out and go in peace.”
Textual and Reception Notes
Verse 16:37
Greek–English Translation
But Paul said to them, “They beat us publicly without condemnation, although we are Roman men, and threw us into prison. Now are they secretly putting us out? No indeed! Let them come themselves and lead us out.”
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: The plural Roman men asserts the status of both men in Paul’s speech. Without condemnation preserves akatakritous; the verse is not expanded into a detailed citation of Roman law.
Verse 16:38
Greek–English Translation
The lictors reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that the men were Romans.
Textual and Reception Notes
Verse 16:39
Greek–English Translation
They came and appealed to them, led them out, and asked them to leave the city.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: Parekalesan is appeal or entreat; an apologetic force is possible in the setting, but no explicit apology speech is supplied.
Verse 16:40
Greek–English Translation
After leaving the prison, they went to Lydia’s house. They saw the brothers, encouraged them, and departed.
Textual and Reception Notes
Text: The narration returns to third-person they in this scene, without adding a stated departure by the first-person narrator.