[25:1] Three days after Festus arrived in the province, he went from Caesarea to Jerusalem,
[25:2] where the chief priests and the Jewish leaders brought their charges against Paul. They begged Festus
[25:3] to do them the favor of having Paul come to Jerusalem, for they had made a plot to kill him on the way.
[25:4] Festus answered, “Paul is being kept a prisoner in Caesarea, and I myself will be going back there soon.
[25:5] Let your leaders go to Caesarea with me and accuse the man if he has done anything wrong.”
[25:6] Festus spent another eight or ten days with them and then went to Caesarea. On the next day he sat down in the judgment court and ordered Paul to be brought in.
[25:7] When Paul arrived, the Jews who had come from Jerusalem stood around him and started making many serious charges against him, which they were not able to prove.
[25:8] But Paul defended himself: “I have done nothing wrong against the Law of the Jews or against the Temple or against the Roman Emperor.”
[25:9] But Festus wanted to gain favor with the Jews, so he asked Paul, “Would you be willing to go to Jerusalem and be tried on these charges before me there?”
[25:10] Paul said, “I am standing before the Emperor's own judgment court, where I should be tried. I have done no wrong to the Jews, as you yourself well know.
[25:11] If I have broken the law and done something for which I deserve the death penalty, I do not ask to escape it. But if there is no truth in the charges they bring against me, no one can hand me over to them. I appeal to the Emperor.”
[25:12] Then Festus, after conferring with his advisers, answered, “You have appealed to the Emperor, so to the Emperor you will go.”