The Lord frees Paul and Silas from prison. They convert the jailor and admonish all to believe on the Lord Jesus and be saved.
Acts 16:25–34
25 And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.
26 And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one’s bands were loosed.
27 And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword, and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled.
28 But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm: for we are all here.
29 Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas,
30 And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?
31 And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.
32 And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house.
33 And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway.
34 And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house.
Elder Bruce R. McConkie wrote:
“Prayer and praise in their persecutor’s prison—how fitting for two missionaries who are overcoming this world and centering their hearts on a better one to come!
“. . . Prisons lose their power when God so purposes. Daniel remains unharmed in a den of lions [see Daniel 6]. Alma and Amulek walk free as the falling prison walls slay their persecutors [see Alma 14]. Nephi and Lehi are encircled by fire from heaven and the earth shakes as they go free [see Helaman 5]. Peter follows an angelic guide as he goes out of Herod’s prison [see Acts 12:1–19]. And now Paul and Silas, and all who are imprisoned with them, have their bands loosed in a miraculous manner.
“. . . Apparently the prison held those guilty of capital offenses whose escape, by Roman custom, would have meant the forfeiture of the jailer’s life. Paul, knowing or sensing the contemplated suicide, calls out and saves the temporal life of the man to whom almost immediately he will offer also spiritual life.
“. . . Is belief alone enough to bring salvation to the contrite soul? Assuredly yes, if by belief is meant the ringing declaration of him who, baptizing our Lord, then testified: ‘He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life’ (John 3:36); or if by belief is meant the pronouncement of Jesus: ‘He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do’ (John 14:12); or if by belief is meant that pure, perfect faith in Christ which presupposes and in fact cannot exist without the works of righteousness [see Mormon Doctrine, 2nd ed. (1966), 78–80; see also Hebrews 11:1–3]. But belief alone is scarcely the beginning of that course leading to a celestial inheritance if it is isolated as a thing apart, if it is supposed that it does not embrace within its folds both baptism and a subsequent course of enduring to the end [see 2 Nephi 31:15–21]. And in the very case at hand, Paul and Silas teach the gospel to the whole group, baptize them, and without question give them the gift of the Holy Ghost, thus starting them out in the direction of salvation.”
(Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, 3 vols. [1965–73], 2:151–52.)
