First Reading

From Miletus Paul had the presbyters

of the Church at Ephesus summoned.

When they came to him, he addressed them,

"You know how I lived among you

the whole time from the day I first came to the province of Asia.

I served the Lord with all humility

and with the tears and trials that came to me

because of the plots of the Jews,

and I did not at all shrink from telling you

what was for your benefit,

or from teaching you in public or in your homes.

I earnestly bore witness for both Jews and Greeks

to repentance before God and to faith in our Lord Jesus.

But now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem.

What will happen to me there I do not know,

except that in one city after another

the Holy Spirit has been warning me

that imprisonment and hardships await me.

Yet I consider life of no importance to me,

if only I may finish my course

and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus,

to bear witness to the Gospel of God's grace.

"But now I know that none of you

to whom I preached the kingdom during my travels

will ever see my face again.

And so I solemnly declare to you this day

that I am not responsible for the blood of any of you,

for I did not shrink from proclaiming to you the entire plan of God."