<p>20:25 <i>And now I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom of God will see my face again</i>- Did he know through a direct Holy Spirit revelation to himself? It was as if the Holy Spirit was telling him the consequences, but he still chose to go that path, and so the Spirit told him that therefore the consequences would really happen. But we must give due weight to the fact that Paul later wrote to Timothy at Ephesus that he hoped to shortly visit him there (1 Tim. 1:3; 3:14), and he planned on visiting Philemon at Colossae (Philemon 22); and that he did visit Miletus again, which was only 40 km. from Ephesus (2 Tim. 4:20). Paul was inspired to write those words to Timothy and Philemon; there was at least the possibility that he could visit Ephesus, despite here in Acts 20:25 saying that it was certain that he would not see the Ephesian elders again. Presumably he had been directed to that thought by the Spirit unless it was purely presentiment, which he had wrong. My suggested reconciliation of this would be that this kind of thing is perfectly in line with the working of the Lord's Spirit which we have noted throughout this chapter; in that the Lord's plans with a person can change, in accordance with their own freewill decisions and desires. One path opened up to Paul was that he would not see them again; but perhaps he repented of his obsession with preaching to Jews in Jerusalem, his pretending to Peter's role, and his desire to &quot;see Rome&quot; almost for the sake of it. And because of that repentance, it became possible for him to return to Ephesus, or at least to that region. This is not to be scoffed at as the Lord being somehow not serious, just as Nineveh's lack of destruction after 40 days is not to be mocked. Rather is this a profound reflection of God's sensitivity to human freewill, and His amazing respect of it.</p>