Acts 18
The full text of Acts 18 in the Trinity Bible Version — clear modern English, translated from the original Greek. Free to read.
1 After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.
2 There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them,
3 and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them.
4 Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade both Jews and Greeks.
5 When Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself fully to preaching, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah.
6 But when they opposed Paul and became abusive, he shook out his clothes in protest and said to them, "Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent of it. From now on I will go to the Gentiles."
7 Then Paul left the synagogue and went next door to the house of Titius Justus, a worshiper of God.
8 Crispus, the synagogue leader, and his entire household believed in the Lord; and many of the Corinthians who heard Paul believed and were baptized.
9 One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: "Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent.
10 For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city."
11 So Paul stayed in Corinth for a year and a half, teaching them the word of God.
12 While Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews of Corinth made a united attack on Paul and brought him to the place of judgment.
13 "This man," they charged, "is persuading the people to worship God in ways contrary to the law."
14 Just as Paul was about to speak, Gallio said to them, "If you Jews were making a complaint about some misdemeanor or serious crime, it would be reasonable for me to put up with you.
15 But since it involves questions about words and names and your own law, settle the matter yourselves. I will not be a judge of such things."
16 So he had them ejected from the court.
17 Then the crowd there turned on Sosthenes the synagogue leader and beat him in front of the proconsul; and Gallio showed no concern whatever.
18 Paul stayed on in Corinth for some time. Then he left the brothers and sisters and sailed for Syria, accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila. Before he sailed, he had his hair cut off at Cenchreae because of a vow he had taken.
19 They arrived at Ephesus, where Paul left Priscilla and Aquila. He himself went into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews.
20 When they asked him to spend more time with them, he declined.
21 But as he left, he promised, "I will come back if it is God's will." Then he set sail from Ephesus.
22 When he landed at Caesarea, he went up and greeted the church and then went down to Antioch.
23 After spending some time in Antioch, Paul set out from there and traveled from place to place throughout the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples.
24 Meanwhile a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures.
25 He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spoke with great fervor and taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John.
26 He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more accurately.
27 When Apollos wanted to go to Achaia, the brothers and sisters encouraged him and wrote to the disciples there to welcome him. When he arrived, he was a great help to those who by grace had believed.
28 For he vigorously refuted his Jewish opponents in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah.
Translation notes (6)
- Acts 18:2a The expulsion is attested by the Roman historian Suetonius, who reports that Claudius banished the Jews from Rome because of disturbances instigated by one 'Chrestus' (Claudius 25.4), likely a garbled reference to disputes over Christ. The fifth-century writer Orosius dates the edict to AD 49, providing a fixed point for the chronology of Paul's stay in Corinth.
- Acts 18:6a Greek ektinaxamenos ta himatia, 'shaking out his garments', is a symbolic act of renunciation like Nehemiah's shaking out his robe (Nehemiah 5:13). The declaration echoes the watchman motif of Ezekiel 33:4, where blood-guilt falls on the head of one who ignores warning, and katharos ego, 'I am clean', parallels Ezekiel 3:18-19, where the faithful messenger is absolved of the hearer's fate.
- Acts 18:12a Gallio, brother of the philosopher Seneca, is named proconsul of Achaia in an inscription from Delphi recording a letter of the emperor Claudius, fixing his term to about AD 51-52 and providing the firmest anchor for Pauline chronology. Greek bema, 'tribunal', rendered here as 'place of judgment', denotes the raised platform where a Roman magistrate heard cases; its remains still stand in the Corinthian forum.
- Acts 18:15a The Greek reads zetemata peri logou kai onomaton (ζητήματα περὶ λόγου καὶ ὀνομάτων), 'questions about a word and names', with logou in the singular. Gallio's phrasing marks the dispute as doctrinal rather than criminal, placing it outside Roman jurisdiction; opsesthe autoi, 'see to it yourselves', is a formula of legal dismissal.
- Acts 18:17a The Greek says only that 'they all' (pantes) seized Sosthenes, without identifying the attackers. Later manuscripts supply either 'the Greeks' or 'the Jews' to resolve the ambiguity; the earliest witnesses have neither. This translation renders the unspecified subject as 'the crowd there'.
- Acts 18:18a Greek keiramenos, 'having had his hair cut', is grammatically ambiguous, since Aquila is the nearest antecedent, but Paul, the subject of the sentence, is most naturally the one under the vow. The practice recalls the Nazirite vow of Numbers 6, in which the hair was shorn at the vow's completion, though Luke does not name the vow or explain its occasion.
About this translation
The Trinity Bible Version (TBV) is Trinity Bible's own modern English translation, worked directly from the original Greek and honest to the earliest manuscripts. It was completed in 2026 — the most modern English Bible translation — and is exclusive to Trinity Bible. Every chapter, including all of Acts, is free to read here on the web.
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