Acts Chapter 25 verse 9 Holy Bible
But Festus, desiring to gain favor with the Jews, answered Paul and said, Wilt thou go up to Jerusalem, and there be judged of these things before me?
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But Festus, desiring to get the approval of the Jews, said to Paul, Will you go up to Jerusalem, and be judged before me there in connection with these things?
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But Festus, desirous of obliging the Jews, to acquire their favour, answering Paul, said, Art thou willing to go up to Jerusalem, there to be judged before me concerning these things?
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But Festus, willing to do the Jews a pleasure, answered Paul, and said, Wilt thou go up to Jerusalem, and there be judged of these things before me?
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read chapter 25 in WBT
But Festus, desiring to gain favor with the Jews, answered Paul and said, "Are you willing to go up to Jerusalem, and be judged by me there concerning these things?"
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And Festus willing to lay on the Jews a favour, answering Paul, said, `Art thou willing, to Jerusalem having gone up, there concerning these things to be judged before me?'
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Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 9. - Desiring to gain favor with the Jews for willing to do the Jews a pleasure, A.V. To gain favor, etc. (see above, Acts 24:27, note). It was not unnatural that Festus, ignorant as he still was of Jewish malice and bigotry and violence, in the case of Paul, and anxious to conciliate a people so difficult to govern as the Jews had showed themselves to be, should make the proposal. In doing so he still insisted that the trial should be before him. Before me; ἐπ ἐμοῦ, as Acts 23:30 and Acts 26:2; ἐπὶ σοῦ "before thee," viz. King Agrippa in the last case, and Felix in the former. The expression is somewhat ambiguous, and may merely mean that Festus would be present in the court to ensure fair play, while the Sanhedrim judged Paul according to their Law, and so Paul seems, by his answer, to have understood it.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(9) Willing to do the Jews a pleasure.--See Note on Acts 24:27. The invitation was in itself plausible enough. It practically admitted that there was no evidence on the last head of the accusation of which he, as procurator, need take cognizance. It offered the prisoner a trial before his own national tribunal, with the presence of the procurator as a check upon violence and injustice. It is manifest from St. Paul's answer that this was practically what Festus meant. The proposed trial would, he says, not be before Caesar's judgment seat, and he, for his part, preferred the secular to the ecclesiastical tribunal.