27. On the fourteenth night, as we were still being driven about on the Adriatic Sea, toward midnight the sailors began to suspect that they were nearing land.
28. They took soundings and found twenty fathoms; a little farther on, they again took soundings and found fifteen fathoms.
29. Fearing that we would run aground on a rocky coast, they dropped four anchors from the stern and prayed for day to come.
30. The sailors then tried to abandon ship; they lowered the dinghy to the sea on the pretext of going to lay out anchors from the bow.
31. But Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, “Unless these men stay with the ship, you cannot be saved.”
32. So the soldiers cut the ropes of the dinghy and set it adrift.
33. Until the day began to dawn, Paul kept urging all to take some food. He said, “Today is the fourteenth day that you have been waiting, going hungry and eating nothing.
34. I urge you, therefore, to take some food; it will help you survive. Not a hair of the head of anyone of you will be lost.”
35. When he said this, he took bread, gave thanks to God in front of them all, broke it, and began to eat.
36. They were all encouraged, and took some food themselves.
37. In all, there were two hundred seventy-six of us on the ship.
38. After they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship by throwing the wheat into the sea.
39. When day came they did not recognize the land, but made out a bay with a beach. They planned to run the ship ashore on it, if they could.