Acts 20:18-35

18 And when they were come to him, he said to them, *Ye* know how I was with you all the time from the first day that I arrived in Asia,
19 serving the Lord with all lowliness, and tears, and temptations, which happened to me through the plots of the Jews;
20 how I held back nothing of what is profitable, so as not to announce [it] to you, and to teach you publicly and in every house,
21 testifying to both Jews and Greeks repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ.
22 And now, behold, bound in my spirit *I* go to Jerusalem, not knowing what things shall happen to me in it;
23 only that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city, saying that bonds and tribulations await me.
24 But I make no account of [my] life [as] dear to myself, so that I finish my course, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the glad tidings of the grace of God.
25 And now, behold, I know that ye all, among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom [of God], shall see my face no more.
26 Wherefore I witness to you this day, that I am clean from the blood of all,
27 for I have not shrunk from announcing to you all the counsel of God.
28 Take heed therefore to yourselves, and to all the flock, wherein the Holy Spirit has set you as overseers, to shepherd the assembly of God, which he has purchased with the blood of his own.
29 [For] *I* know [this,] that there will come in amongst you after my departure grievous wolves, not sparing the flock;
30 and from among your own selves shall rise up men speaking perverted things to draw away the disciples after them.
31 Wherefore watch, remembering that for three years, night and day, I ceased not admonishing each one [of you] with tears.
32 And now I commit you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build [you] up and give [to you] an inheritance among all the sanctified.
33 I have coveted [the] silver or gold or clothing of no one.
34 Yourselves know that these hands have ministered to my wants, and to those who were with me.
35 I have shewed you all things, that thus labouring [we] ought to come in aid of the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that he himself said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.

Footnotes 3

  • [a]. Middle voice; reflexive: see Note e, Heb. 1.3.
  • [b]. I am fully satisfied that this is the right translation of ver. 28. To make it a question of the divinity of Christ (which I hold to be of the foundation of Christianity) is absurd. It has been questioned whether 'of his own' can be used thus absolutely in the singular. But we have it in John 15.19, and in the neuter singular for material things, Acts 4.32. The torturing of the passage by copyists arose, I believe, from not seeing, the real sense of it; a touching expression of the love of God.
  • [c]. Specially, 'to show by example.'
The Darby Translation is in the public domain.