em, flog them."

The slaves of the praetors seized Paul and Silas and took their robes
from their backs. They were tied by their hands to the whipping-post.
The crowd gathered round to see the foreigners thrashed.

The lictors--that is the soldier-servants of the praetors--untied their
bundles of rods. Then each lictor brought down his rod with cruel
strokes on Paul and Silas. The rods cut into the flesh and the blood
flowed down.

Then their robes were thrown over their shoulders, and the two men,
with their tortured backs bleeding, were led into the black darkness
of the cell of the city prison; shackles were snapped on to their
arms, and their feet were clapped into stocks. Their bodies ached; the
other prisoners groaned and cursed; the filthy place stank; sleep was
impossible.

But Paul and Silas did not groan. They sang the songs of their own
people, such as the verses that Paul had learned--as all Jewish
children did--when he was a boy at school. For instance--

God is our refuge and strength,
A very present help in trouble.
Therefore will we not fear, though the earth do change,
And though the mountains be moved in the heart of the seas;
Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled,
Though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.

As they sang there came a noise as though the mountains really were
shaking. The ground rocked; the walls shook; the chains were loosened
from the stones; the stocks were wrenched apart; their hands and feet
were free; the heavy doors crashed open. It was an earthquake.

The jailor leapt to the entrance of the prison. The moonlight shone on
his sword as he was about to kill himself, thinking his prisoners had
escaped.

"Do not harm yourself," shouted Paul. "We are all here."

"Torches! Torches!" yelled the jailor.

The jailor, like all the people of his land, believed that earthquakes
were sent by God. He thought he was lost. He turned to Paul and Silas
who, he knew, were teachers about God.

"Sirs," he said, falling in fear on the ground, "what must I do to be
saved?"

"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ," they replied, "and you and your
household will all be saved."

The jailor's wife then brought some oil and water, and the jailor
washed the poor wounded backs of Paul and Silas and rubbed healing oil
into them.

The night was now passing and the sun began to rise. There was a tramp
of feet. The lictors who had thrashed Paul and Silas marched to