What God Says and Does

⁸And ehe entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them fabout the kingdom of God. ⁹gBut when some became stubborn and hcontinued in unbelief, speaking evil of ithe Way before the congregation, he withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus.3 ¹⁰This continued for jtwo years, so that kall the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.

The Sons of Sceva

¹¹And lGod was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, ¹²lso that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and mthe evil spirits came out of them. ¹³Then some of the itinerant Jewish nexorcists oundertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, p“I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” ¹⁴Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. ¹⁵But the evil spirit answered them, q“Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” ¹⁶And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all4 of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. ¹⁷And this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks. And fear fell upon them all, and rthe name of the Lord Jesus was extolled. ¹⁸Also many of those who were now believers came, sconfessing and divulging their practices. ¹⁹And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver. ²⁰So the word of the Lord tcontinued to increase and prevail mightily.