Acts 21:17-26 And when we were come to Jerusalem, the brothers received us gladly.… The tongue of the slanderer is a devouring fire, which tarnishes whatever it touches; which exercises its fury on the good grain equally as on the chaff, on the profane as on the sacred; which, wherever it passes, leaves only desolation and ruin; digs even into the bowels of the earth, and fixes itself on things the most hidden; turns into vile ashes what only a moment before had appeared to us so precious and brilliant; acts with more violence and danger than ever in the time when it was apparently smothered up and almost extinct; which blackens what it cannot consume, and sometimes sparkles and delights before it destroys. (J. Massillon.) Parallel Verses KJV: And when we were come to Jerusalem, the brethren received us gladly.WEB: When we had come to Jerusalem, the brothers received us gladly. |