39.When daylight came, the sailors saw land, but they did not know what land it was. They saw a bay with a beach and wanted to sail the ship to the beach if they could.
40 So they cut the ropes to the anchors and left the anchors in the sea. At the same time, they untied the ropes that were holding the rudders. Then they raised the front sail into the wind and sailed toward the beach.
41 But the ship hit a sandbank. The front of the ship stuck there and could not move. Then the big waves began to break the back of the ship to pieces.
42 The soldiers decided to kill the prisoners so that none of the prisoners could swim away and escape.
43 But Julius the army officer wanted to let Paul live. So he did not allow the soldiers to kill the prisoners. He told the people who could swim to jump into the water and swim to land.
44 The others used wooden boards or pieces of the ship. And this is how all the people went safely to land.
acts 28:1
When we were safe on land, we learned that the island was called Malta.
2 The people who lived there were very good to us. It was raining and very cold, so they built a fire and welcomed all of us.
3 Paul gathered a pile of sticks for the fire. He was putting the sticks on the fire, and a poisonous snake came out because of the heat and bit him on the hand.
4 When the people living on the island saw the snake hanging from his hand, they said, “This man must be a murderer! He did not die in the sea, but Justice[a] does not want him to live.”
5 But Paul shook the snake off into the fire and was not hurt.
6 The people thought he would swell up or fall down dead. They waited and watched him for a long time, but nothing bad happened to him. So they changed their opinion. They said, “He is a god!”
7 There were some fields around that same area. They were owned by a man named Publius, the most important Roman official on the island. He welcomed us into his home and was very good to us. We stayed in his house for three days.
8 Publius’ father was very sick. He had a fever and dysentery, but Paul went to him and prayed for him. He laid his hands on the man and healed him.
9 After this happened, all the other sick people on the island came to Paul, and he healed them too.
10-11 The people on the island gave us many honors. And after we had been there three months and were ready to leave, they provided us everything we needed for our trip.

Paul Goes to Rome
We got on a ship from Alexandria that had stayed on the island of Malta during the winter. On the front of the ship was the sign for the twin gods.[b]