ProphetTransforming allegiance

Acts 19 — The Ephesian mission and the disturbance over Artemis — Greek text and reception

Saints Translation: Acts 1–28 [V2]

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 19 — The Ephesian mission and the disturbance over Artemis

Disciples receive the Spirit in Ephesus

Verse 19:1

Greek–English Translation

While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul passed through the upper regions and came to Ephesus. He found some disciples

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Upper regions preserves the general inland designation without inserting a precise route.

NA28: κατελθεῖν, "came down to Ephesus" (SBLGNT ἐλθεῖν); the rendering above follows SBLGNT; NA28 would read "came down to Ephesus".

Verse 19:2

Greek–English Translation

and said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” They said to him, “We have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.”

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: When you believed renders the aorist participle without insisting on a separately timed second stage. Their answer literally concerns whether the Holy Spirit is; it is not silently expanded to has been given, though that is a contextual interpretation.

Verse 19:3

Greek–English Translation

He said, “Into what, then, were you baptized?” They said, “Into John’s baptism.”

Textual and Reception Notes

Verse 19:4

Greek–English Translation

Paul said, “John baptized with a baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the One coming after him, that is, in Jesus.”

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: The selected identification is Jesus, without an additional Christ.

Verse 19:5

Greek–English Translation

When they heard this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: The narrative describes these hearers’ response; the translation does not turn the verse into a continuation describing only John’s original audience.

Verse 19:6

Greek–English Translation

When Paul laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.

Textual and Reception Notes

Saints: Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 17.30, recalls these tongues and prophecies as manifestations of the Spirit’s power through Paul’s ministry. [CYR-17]

Verse 19:7

Greek–English Translation

There were about twelve men in all.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: About is explicit and is not removed to impose an exact symbolic count.

Teaching and extraordinary works

Verse 19:8

Greek–English Translation

He entered the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading concerning the kingdom of God.

Textual and Reception Notes

Verse 19:9

Greek–English Translation

But when some became hardened and refused to believe, speaking evil of the Way before the multitude, he withdrew from them and separated the disciples, reasoning daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Some distinguishes the opponents from the whole synagogue. The selected text does not include specified hours for the daily teaching.

Verse 19:10

Greek–English Translation

This continued for two years, so that all who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.

Textual and Reception Notes

Verse 19:11

Greek–English Translation

God was doing extraordinary mighty works through Paul’s hands,

Textual and Reception Notes

Verse 19:12

Greek–English Translation

so that even cloths or aprons from contact with his skin were carried to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits went out.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Soudaria and simikinthia are cloths/handkerchiefs and aprons. Contact with his skin reflects chrōs, the bodily surface; God remains the stated agent from 19:11. No universal procedure for healing objects is added.

The sons of Sceva and the renunciation of magic

Verse 19:13

Greek–English Translation

Some itinerant Jewish exorcists also attempted to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.”

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: The selected adjuration is singular I, within a plural description of exorcists; it is not harmonized to we. Evidence: SBL-ACTS-APP, 19:13 lists singular I adjure with WH/Treg/NA28 and plural we adjure with RP.

Verse 19:14

Greek–English Translation

Seven sons of a certain Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: The narrator’s chief-priest designation is retained without inventing an independently verified office or genealogy for Sceva.

Verse 19:15

Greek–English Translation

But the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?”

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Know and recognize distinguish the two verbs without turning them into a precise ranking of supernatural knowledge.

Verse 19:16

Greek–English Translation

The man in whom the evil spirit was leaped upon them, mastered both of them, and overpowered them, so that they fled from that house naked and wounded.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: SBLGNT prints amphoterōn, normally both, although seven sons were named in 19:14. Both is retained as the difficult selected wording rather than silently changed to all; broader collective use has been proposed, but the scene’s exact participant count remains a review question. Evidence: SBL-ACTS-APP, 19:16 lists amphoterōn, both, with WH/Treg/NA28; RP instead has autōn, of them.

Verse 19:17

Greek–English Translation

This became known to all the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus. Fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified.

Textual and Reception Notes

Verse 19:18

Greek–English Translation

Many who had believed came, confessing and reporting their practices.

Textual and Reception Notes

Verse 19:19

Greek–English Translation

A considerable number who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them before everyone. They calculated their prices and found the total to be fifty thousand in silver.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Perierga has the contextual sense magical practices. The source gives five myriads of silver without naming a coin denomination; no drachma, denarius, or modern currency is invented.

Verse 19:20

Greek–English Translation

In this way the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed.

Textual and Reception Notes

Paul’s plans and Demetrius’s accusation

Verse 19:21

Greek–English Translation

After these things were completed, Paul resolved in spirit to pass through Macedonia and Achaia and go to Jerusalem, saying, “After I have been there, I must also see Rome.”

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: In spirit can refer to Paul’s inward resolve or the Holy Spirit’s direction; lower case retains the uncertainty without deleting the phrase.

Verse 19:22

Greek–English Translation

He sent two of those who assisted him, Timothy and Erastus, to Macedonia, while he himself remained in Asia for a time.

Textual and Reception Notes

Verse 19:23

Greek–English Translation

About that time no small disturbance arose concerning the Way.

Textual and Reception Notes

Verse 19:24

Greek–English Translation

A silversmith named Demetrius, who made silver shrines of Artemis, provided no little business for the craftsmen.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Artemis is the Greek divine name. Shrines preserves naoi in the manufactured objects rather than replacing them with an unmentioned figure type.

Verse 19:25

Greek–English Translation

He gathered them and the workers in related trades and said, “Men, you know that our prosperity comes from this business.

Textual and Reception Notes

Verse 19:26

Greek–English Translation

You see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost all Asia this Paul has persuaded and turned away a considerable crowd, saying that things made by hands are not gods.

Textual and Reception Notes

Verse 19:27

Greek–English Translation

There is danger not only that this trade of ours will fall into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be reckoned as nothing, and that she whom all Asia and the inhabited world worship will be stripped of her magnificence.”

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: The trade’s interest and the religious claim are both Demetrius’s stated concerns. The universal worship claim is not the narrator’s independently established assertion.

The disturbance in the theater

Verse 19:28

Greek–English Translation

When they heard this, they became full of rage and cried out, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”

Textual and Reception Notes

Verse 19:29

Greek–English Translation

The city was filled with confusion. They rushed together into the theater, seizing Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians who traveled with Paul.

Textual and Reception Notes

Verse 19:30

Greek–English Translation

Paul wanted to enter among the populace, but the disciples would not let him.

Textual and Reception Notes

Verse 19:31

Greek–English Translation

Even some of the Asiarchs, who were his friends, sent to him and urged him not to venture into the theater.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Asiarchs retains the particular provincial title without assigning a more specific office function than this passage states.

Verse 19:32

Greek–English Translation

Some shouted one thing and some another, for the assembly was confused, and most did not know why they had come together.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Ekklēsia is assembly in this civic crowd, not Church. The same contextual distinction is retained at 19:39 and source 19:40b.

Verse 19:33

Greek–English Translation

They prompted Alexander from the crowd, the Jews having put him forward. Alexander motioned with his hand and wished to make a defense before the populace.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Synebibasan can express instructing or prompting, and the construction with from the crowd is difficult. The selected verb is retained through prompted rather than silently replaced by a different verb for pushing forward. The Jews’ putting him forward is separately explicit. Evidence: SBL-ACTS-APP, 19:33 lists synebibasan with WH/Treg/NA28 and proebibasan with RP.

Verse 19:34

Greek–English Translation

When they recognized that he was a Jew, one cry arose from them all for about two hours: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”

Textual and Reception Notes

The city secretary dismisses the assembly

Verse 19:35

Greek–English Translation

The city secretary quieted the crowd and said, “Men of Ephesus, who among human beings does not know that the city of the Ephesians is temple-keeper of the great Artemis and of what fell from Zeus?

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Diopetes describes the Zeus-fallen object. What fell from Zeus preserves the cultic designation without identifying its material as a meteorite or inserting an explicit image noun. The statement belongs to the secretary’s appeal.

Verse 19:36

Greek–English Translation

Since these things are undeniable, you must remain calm and do nothing rash.

Textual and Reception Notes

Verse 19:37

Greek–English Translation

For you have brought these men here, though they are neither temple-robbers nor blasphemers of our goddess.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Our goddess is the selected possessive within the civic speaker’s statement; it is not changed to your goddess.

Verse 19:38

Greek–English Translation

If Demetrius and the craftsmen with him have a charge against anyone, court sessions are held and proconsuls are available; let them bring charges against one another.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: The plural proconsuls is retained. No specific number of officeholders or external administrative explanation is inserted.

Verse 19:39

Greek–English Translation

But if you seek anything further, it will be settled in the lawful assembly.

Textual and Reception Notes

Text: Lawful assembly preserves the distinction between an authorized civic meeting and the present confused gathering.

Verse 19:40a

Greek–English Translation

For we are in danger of being charged with rioting over today’s events, since there is no cause for it; we will not be able to give an account of this gathering.”

Textual and Reception Notes

Numbering: Source Acts 19:40a is an editorial subdivision of the Greek file’s single 19:40 entry; this first part corresponds to conventional 19:40. Text: Both no cause and will not be able are retained. The compressed relative construction is expressed as connected English clauses, without implying the riot has an adequate justification.

Verse 19:40b

Greek–English Translation

After saying these things, he dismissed the assembly.

Textual and Reception Notes

Numbering: Source Acts 19:40b is the second editorial subdivision of the Greek file’s 19:40 entry. This sentence is conventionally numbered 19:41, but the accessed source has no independent 19:41 entry. It is translated here once in full, not treated as absent.