Acts 24:1-9

Hearing before Felix: Speech for the Prosecution. It would take five days (1) for the summons of Lysias (Acts 23:30) to be acted on, and the prosecutors to travel down. The High Priest and some elders appear, to sustain a judgment they have not yet passed (cf. Acts 24:6 mg., which may well be the true text) with an orator acquainted with the practice of Roman courts. Information is laid against Paul; Paul is called before the court, or the case is called in court (Acts 24:2), and counsel appears for the prosecution. His speech is given in short; his compliments to the procurator (who had in truth done much to suppress piracy; what other evils we do not know), his desire to be brief, then the charge and the suggestion that the facts will come out in the examination of Paul himself. The charge is that of sedition, disturbance of order, and an offence against the Temple. He is a pest; he has created disorder all over the world; he is a ringleader of the sect of the Nazoreans.