[27:1] When it was decided that we should sail to Italy, they handed Paul and some other prisoners over to Julius, an officer in the Roman army regiment called “The Emperor's Regiment.”
[27:2] We went aboard a ship from Adramyttium, which was ready to leave for the seaports of the province of Asia, and we sailed away. Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica, was with us.
[27:3] The next day we arrived at Sidon. Julius was kind to Paul and allowed him to go and see his friends, to be given what he needed.
[27:4] We went on from there, and because the winds were blowing against us, we sailed on the sheltered side of the island of Cyprus.
[27:5] We crossed over the sea off Cilicia and Pamphylia and came to Myra in Lycia.
[27:6] There the officer found a ship from Alexandria that was going to sail for Italy, so he put us aboard.
[27:7] We sailed slowly for several days and with great difficulty finally arrived off the town of Cnidus. The wind would not let us go any farther in that direction, so we sailed down the sheltered side of the island of Crete, passing by Cape Salmone.
[27:8] We kept close to the coast and with great difficulty came to a place called Safe Harbors, not far from the town of Lasea.
[27:9] We spent a long time there, until it became dangerous to continue the voyage, for by now the Day of Atonement was already past. So Paul gave them this advice:
[27:10] “Men, I see that our voyage from here on will be dangerous; there will be great damage to the cargo and to the ship, and loss of life as well.”
[27:11] But the army officer was convinced by what the captain and the owner of the ship said, and not by what Paul said.
[27:12] The harbor was not a good one to spend the winter in; so almost everyone was in favor of putting out to sea and trying to reach Phoenix, if possible, in order to spend the winter there. Phoenix is a harbor in Crete that faces southwest and northwest.