20. For a number of days we couldn’t see the sun or the stars. The storm wouldn’t let up. It was so severe that we finally began to lose any hope of coming out of it alive.
21. Since hardly anyone wanted to eat, Paul stood among them and said, “Men, you should have followed my advice not to sail from Crete. You would have avoided this disaster and loss.
22. Now I advise you to have courage. No one will lose his life. Only the ship will be destroyed.
23. I know this because an angel from the God to whom I belong and whom I serve stood by me last night.
24. The angel told me, ‘Don’t be afraid, Paul! You must present your case to the emperor. God has granted safety to everyone who is sailing with you.’
25. So have courage, men! I trust God that everything will turn out as he told me.
26. However, we will run aground on some island.”
27. On the fourteenth night we were still drifting through the Mediterranean Sea. About midnight the sailors suspected that we were approaching land.
28. So they threw a line with a weight on it into the water. It sank 120 feet. They waited a little while and did the same thing again. This time the line sank 90 feet.
29. Fearing we might hit rocks, they dropped four anchors from the back of the ship and prayed for morning to come.
30. The sailors tried to escape from the ship. They let the lifeboat down into the sea and pretended they were going to lay out the anchors from the front of the ship.
31. Paul told the officer and the soldiers, “If these sailors don’t stay on the ship, you have no hope of staying alive.”
32. Then the soldiers cut the ropes that held the lifeboat and let it drift away.
33. Just before daybreak Paul was encouraging everyone to have something to eat. “This is the fourteenth day you have waited and have had nothing to eat.
34. So I’m encouraging you to eat something. Eating will help you survive, since not a hair from anyone’s head will be lost.”
35. After Paul said this, he took some bread, thanked God in front of everyone, broke it, and began to eat.
36. Everyone was encouraged and had something to eat.