Read the passage and its setting
Acts 16:16–16:24, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Acts 16:16–16:24
Liberation from exploitation leads to illegal confinement
The Main Point
An enslaved girl whose divination profits her owners follows the missionaries until Paul commands the spirit to leave; her owners, angered at lost income, use ethnic and civic accusations to secure beating and imprisonment.
What Is Happening Here?
An enslaved girl whose divination profits her owners follows the missionaries until Paul commands the spirit to leave; her owners, angered at lost income, use ethnic and civic accusations to secure beating and imprisonment.
What Came Before—and What Comes Next?
Acts 16:11–16:15 has just shown that The team reaches Philippi, goes to a riverside prayer place, speaks with women, and the Lord opens Lydia's heart; she and her household are baptized, and she presses the missionaries to accept her hospitality.
Acts 16:25–16:34 will show that Paul and Silas pray and sing after beating, an earthquake opens doors and bonds, Paul prevents the jailer from suicide, the jailer hears the word, tends wounds, and his household is baptized and rejoices.
Follow the Witness from Jerusalem to Rome
See why this section appears here and how the author's witness movement leads to its meaning.
Why Is This Passage Here?
An enslaved girl whose divination profits her owners follows the missionaries until Paul commands the spirit to leave; her owners, angered at lost income, use ethnic and civic accusations to secure beating and imprisonment. This position makes the preceding development answerable to a new geographic, social, or institutional setting.
Follow the Scene or Speech
An enslaved girl whose divination profits her owners follows the missionaries until Paul commands the spirit to leave; her owners, angered at lost income, use ethnic and civic accusations to secure beating and imprisonment.
The unit distinguishes narrated event, participant speech, the narrator's framing, material uncertainty, and the ethical boundary: The episode does not excuse Paul's irritation, erase the enslaved girl after the miracle, endorse exorcism over care, or justify anti-Roman or antisemitic stereotypes.
What Is the Author Saying?
Why This Interpretation Fits
Unit movement
An enslaved girl whose divination profits her owners follows the missionaries until Paul commands the spirit to leave; her owners, angered at lost income, use ethnic and civic accusations to secure beating and imprisonment.
Narrator and speech control
The scene reports action, response, and consequence without making every action exemplary. Narrated sequence must be separated from a universal church or salvation rule.
Material limit
The girl is liberated from the spirit but the narrative does not tell whether she is freed from slavery or receives care; Roman colony status and anti-Jewish rhetoric shape the owners' manipulation.
Understand the Meaning and Its Boundaries
Clarify the words that matter and keep the conclusion no broader than the passage allows.
Words That Matter
Liberation from exploitation leads to illegal confinement
See the cited Greek text for the unit's individual expressions ·
This study phrase gathers the unit's narrated movement without claiming that it is one Greek lemma: An enslaved girl whose divination profits her owners follows the missionaries until Paul commands the spirit to leave; her owners, angered at lost income, use ethnic and civic accusations to secure beating and imprisonment.
What the Passage Is Not Saying
Reading Acts 16:16–16:24 within Luke-Acts and the complete thought unit rules out this use:
The episode does not excuse Paul's irritation, erase the enslaved girl after the miracle, endorse exorcism over care, or justify anti-Roman or antisemitic stereotypes.
Context check: An enslaved girl whose divination profits her owners follows the missionaries until Paul commands the spirit to leave; her owners, angered at lost income, use ethnic and civic accusations to secure beating and imprisonment. The scene reports action, response, and consequence without making every action exemplary. Narrated sequence must be separated from a universal church or salvation rule.
What Remains True Today
Faithful witness preserves the unit's narrated sequence, speaker and narrator distinction, Jewish and Gentile identities, affected people, and material uncertainty. The episode does not excuse Paul's irritation, erase the enslaved girl after the miracle, endorse exorcism over care, or justify anti-Roman or antisemitic stereotypes.
Respond and Remember
Let the meaning shape life carefully, then practice explaining the section in context.
How This Should Shape Us
Why these applications follow
An enslaved girl whose divination profits her owners follows the missionaries until Paul commands the spirit to leave; her owners, angered at lost income, use ethnic and civic accusations to secure beating and imprisonment.
An enslaved girl whose divination profits her owners follows the missionaries until Paul commands the spirit to leave; her owners, angered at lost income, use ethnic and civic accusations to secure beating and imprisonment. The scene reports action, response, and consequence without making every action exemplary. Narrated sequence must be separated from a universal church or salvation rule.
Faithful witness preserves the unit's narrated sequence, speaker and narrator distinction, Jewish and Gentile identities, affected people, and material uncertainty. The episode does not excuse Paul's irritation, erase the enslaved girl after the miracle, endorse exorcism over care, or justify anti-Roman or antisemitic stereotypes.
What accountable response follows?
First identify the verse role and speaker within Acts 16:16–16:24; then state the contextual meaning—An enslaved girl whose divination profits her owners follows the missionaries until Paul commands the spirit to leave; her owners, angered at lost income, use ethnic and civic accusations to secure beating and imprisonment. Preserve the proportionate truth that witness remains accountable to context, evidence, and affected people; finally apply this safeguard: The episode does not excuse Paul's irritation, erase the enslaved girl after the miracle, endorse exorcism over care, or justify anti-Roman or antisemitic stereotypes.
A Concrete Example
When Acts 16:16–16:24 is cited today, name the speaker, authority, people affected, evidence, and uncertainty before proposing an analogy; then test the proposed action against this boundary: The episode does not excuse Paul's irritation, erase the enslaved girl after the miracle, endorse exorcism over care, or justify anti-Roman or antisemitic stereotypes.
Teach It Back
Explain Acts 16:16–16:24 in your own words, naming its movement, speaker or narrator role, one source-controlled detail, one uncertainty, one affected person, and one conclusion the passage does not authorize.
Your explanation stays in this browser. It is not sent or saved.
Go Deeper
The main explanation above stands on its own. Open these optional sections for fuller language, history, disagreements, and source locations.
Read it sentence by sentenceEach line inside the larger movement
Narrative or speech movement
An enslaved girl whose divination profits her owners follows the missionaries until Paul commands the spirit to leave; her owners, angered at lost income, use ethnic and civic accusations to secure beating and imprisonment.
Interpretive control
The scene reports action, response, and consequence without making every action exemplary. Narrated sequence must be separated from a universal church or salvation rule.
Ethical boundary
The episode does not excuse Paul's irritation, erase the enslaved girl after the miracle, endorse exorcism over care, or justify anti-Roman or antisemitic stereotypes.
Original-language wording and grammarTechnical detail appears only where it helps
Liberation from exploitation leads to illegal confinement
This study phrase gathers the unit's narrated movement without claiming that it is one Greek lemma: An enslaved girl whose divination profits her owners follows the missionaries until Paul commands the spirit to leave; her owners, angered at lost income, use ethnic and civic accusations to secure beating and imprisonment.
How certain? probableWhat the first readers would have understoodRelevant history and culture
Setting and recoverable limits
The girl is liberated from the spirit but the narrative does not tell whether she is freed from slavery or receives care; Roman colony status and anti-Jewish rhetoric shape the owners' manipulation. Geography, chronology, social practice, Roman procedure, and institutional reconstruction are claimed only to the degree supported by the cited sources.
How certain? probableWhy translations sometimes differMaterial translation choices
Pinned KJV and Greek control
The pinned KJV remains the displayed text. SBLGNT, STEP morphology, and the NET notes were checked for Acts 16:16–16:24; older KJV wording is explained only where it materially affects understanding.
How certain? strongEarlier Scripture and inherited backgroundSupported quotations, allusions, and inherited ideas
Israel's Scriptures and Jewish setting
Acts continues Israel's scriptural story through Jewish witnesses, synagogues, temple worship, Torah practice, diaspora communities, and contested interpretations. An enslaved girl whose divination profits her owners follows the missionaries until Paul commands the spirit to leave; her owners, angered at lost income, use ethnic and civic accusations to secure beating and imprisonment.
How certain? strongHow this connects with the rest of ScriptureThe passage's own meaning remains primary
Luke-Acts and responsible canonical reading
Luke's first volume is the immediate literary horizon. Later canonical connections must preserve Acts 16:16–16:24's own sequence, Jewish setting, speakers, and unresolved questions.
How certain? strongTextual variantsManuscript differences only when they affect meaning
The inspected SBLGNT, NET notes, and where relevant Codex Bezae do not expose a variant that changes this unit's central movement; The girl is liberated from the spirit but the narrative does not tell whether she is freed from slavery or receives care; Roman colony status and anti-Jewish rhetoric shape the owners' manipulation.
Where careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Which judgment needs visible uncertainty?
Best judgment: The girl is liberated from the spirit but the narrative does not tell whether she is freed from slavery or receives care; Roman colony status and anti-Jewish rhetoric shape the owners' manipulation.
How certain? probableTheology that emerges from this passageConclusions drawn after reading the complete section
Theological contribution
Acts joins divine initiative, the Spirit, human witness, communal discernment, and accountable action in this movement: An enslaved girl whose divination profits her owners follows the missionaries until Paul commands the spirit to leave; her owners, angered at lost income, use ethnic and civic accusations to secure beating and imprisonment.
How certain? strongTheological contribution
God's action in Acts 16:16–16:24 is narrated as particular gift, judgment, guidance, or preservation; it is not a technique readers can control or a warrant for the misuse explicitly rejected here.
How certain? strongCommon ways this passage gets misusedFair explanation, context check, and stronger reading
The episode does not excuse Paul's irritation, erase the enslaved girl after the miracle, endorse exorcism over care, or justify anti-Roman or antisemitic stereotypes.
A vivid event or line in Acts 16:16–16:24 can be detached from its narrator, speaker, first audience, ancient institutions, literary placement, and later Acts parallels.
An enslaved girl whose divination profits her owners follows the missionaries until Paul commands the spirit to leave; her owners, angered at lost income, use ethnic and civic accusations to secure beating and imprisonment. The scene reports action, response, and consequence without making every action exemplary. Narrated sequence must be separated from a universal church or salvation rule.
Keep description distinct from command, actor interpretation distinct from authorial evaluation, and original setting distinct from faithful application.
An enslaved girl whose divination profits her owners follows the missionaries until Paul commands the spirit to leave; her owners, angered at lost income, use ethnic and civic accusations to secure beating and imprisonment.
Research trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact displayed KJV wording, order, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and unit coverage.
Acts 16:16–16:24, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived repository corpus
Supports: Greek wording and punctuation control, without pretending one edition is a complete apparatus.
SBLGNT official text, Acts 16:16-16:24
Supports: Morphology and lexical cross-check for words explicitly discussed in this unit.
STEP Bible Data, TAGNT rows for Acts 16:16-16:24
Supports: Verse-attached textual, translation, language, geography, chronology, and historical notes actually printed for the unit.
NET Bible First Edition Acts PDF, printed pp. 2104-2205, exact tn/tc/sn entries attached to 16:16–16:24
Supports: Introductory critical orientation to the unit's place in Luke-Acts, with contested judgments retained as interpretations.
Yale Bible Study Acts course, course unit 'Apologetic Ministry,' Acts 16-17 study guide
Supports: One complete confessional commentary reading, independently checked against the text and critical controls.
Thompson, online Acts commentary, heading and paragraphs explicitly covering Acts 16:16–16:24
Supports: Roman law-enforcement comparison with explicit local variation and limits on reconstructing procedure.
Brelaz, JSNT 43.4 (2021), complete open HTML, section 1 and the named provincial, custody, citizenship, hearing, or conclusion paragraphs bearing on Acts 16:16–16:24
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed KJV wording, order, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and unit coverage.
Exact location: Acts 16:16–16:24, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived repository corpus
Open source ↗Greek textual evidence
The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition
Michael W. Holmes, editor; Society of Biblical Literature and Logos
Society of Biblical Literature and Logos Bible Software, 2010
Supports: Greek wording and punctuation control, without pretending one edition is a complete apparatus.
Exact location: SBLGNT official text, Acts 16:16-16:24
Open the Acts Greek text file ↗Lexical and grammatical evidence
STEP Bible Data
Tyndale House Cambridge
Tyndale House Cambridge, repository snapshot verified 2026
Supports: Morphology and lexical cross-check for words explicitly discussed in this unit.
Exact location: STEP Bible Data, TAGNT rows for Acts 16:16-16:24
Open source ↗open translation and translator notes
NET Bible First Edition Notes: Acts
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Verse-attached textual, translation, language, geography, chronology, and historical notes actually printed for the unit.
Exact location: NET Bible First Edition Acts PDF, printed pp. 2104-2205, exact tn/tc/sn entries attached to 16:16–16:24
Open source ↗open university bible study course
Acts of the Apostles Course and Study Guides
Yale Divinity School faculty
Yale Bible Study, 2019
Supports: Introductory critical orientation to the unit's place in Luke-Acts, with contested judgments retained as interpretations.
Exact location: Yale Bible Study Acts course, course unit 'Apologetic Ministry,' Acts 16-17 study guide
Open source ↗open confessional commentary
The Acts of the Apostles
Alan J. Thompson
The Gospel Coalition, 2023
Supports: One complete confessional commentary reading, independently checked against the text and critical controls.
Exact location: Thompson, online Acts commentary, heading and paragraphs explicitly covering Acts 16:16–16:24
Open source ↗peer reviewed open access scholarly article
The Provincial Contexts of Paul's Imprisonments: Law Enforcement and Criminal Procedure in the Roman East
Cedric Brelaz
Journal for the Study of the New Testament 43.4, 2021
Supports: Roman law-enforcement comparison with explicit local variation and limits on reconstructing procedure.
Exact location: Brelaz, JSNT 43.4 (2021), complete open HTML, section 1 and the named provincial, custody, citizenship, hearing, or conclusion paragraphs bearing on Acts 16:16–16:24
Open source ↗