20. They praised God when they heard it but said to him, “Brother, you see how many thousands of believers there are from among the Jews, and they are all zealous observers of the law.
21. They have been informed that you are teaching all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to abandon Moses and that you are telling them not to circumcise their children or to observe their customary practices.
22. What is to be done? They will surely hear that you have arrived.
23. So do what we tell you. We have four men who have taken a vow.
24. Take these men and purify yourself with them, and pay their expenses that they may have their heads shaved. In this way everyone will know that there is nothing to the reports they have been given about you but that you yourself live in observance of the law.
25. As for the Gentiles who have come to believe, we sent them our decision that they abstain from meat sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals, and from unlawful marriage.”
26. So Paul took the men, and on the next day after purifying himself together with them entered the temple to give notice of the day when the purification would be completed and the offering made for each of them.
27. When the seven days were nearly completed, the Jews from the province of Asia noticed him in the temple, stirred up the whole crowd, and laid hands on him,
28. shouting, “Fellow Israelites, help us. This is the man who is teaching everyone everywhere against the people and the law and this place, and what is more, he has even brought Greeks into the temple and defiled this sacred place.”
29. For they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with him and supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple.
30. The whole city was in turmoil with people rushing together. They seized Paul and dragged him out of the temple, and immediately the gates were closed.
31. While they were trying to kill him, a report reached the cohort commander that all Jerusalem was rioting.
32. He immediately took soldiers and centurions and charged down on them. When they saw the commander and the soldiers they stopped beating Paul.
33. The cohort commander came forward, arrested him, and ordered him to be secured with two chains; he tried to find out who he might be and what he had done.
34. Some in the mob shouted one thing, others something else; so, since he was unable to ascertain the truth because of the uproar, he ordered Paul to be brought into the compound.
35. When he reached the steps, he was carried by the soldiers because of the violence of the mob,
36. for a crowd of people followed and shouted, “Away with him!”
37. Just as Paul was about to be taken into the compound, he said to the cohort commander, “May I say something to you?” He replied, “Do you speak Greek?
38. So then you are not the Egyptian who started a revolt some time ago and led the four thousand assassins into the desert?”
39. Paul answered, “I am a Jew, of Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city; I request you to permit me to speak to the people.”