King James Bible
"And when there was an assault made both of the Gentiles, and also of the Jews with their rulers, to use them despitefully, and to stone them,"
A violent plot forms against Paul and Barnabas, uniting typically opposed groups—Gentiles and Jews—along with their civic leaders. This unusual coalition demonstrates how the gospel message threatened both pagan and Jewish religious establishments in Iconium. The conspirators intended first to publicly humiliate the apostles, then execute them by stoning—a Jewish method of capital punishment for blasphemy. This escalation from verbal opposition to planned murder shows the intensity of resistance to the Christian message.