When we arrived at the jail is implicit in the Greek text and the Good News Translation has made this information explicit. Most translators prefer to render without a transitional (New English Bible “we found the jail securely locked”).

The phrase found it locked up tight may require some slight modification since in some languages one does not “lock a jail,” but rather one “locks the doors of the jail”; therefore, “found the doors securely locked.”

The clause all the guards on watch at the gates is equivalent in many languages to “all the soldiers carefully guarding the doors.”

There is a potential problem in the phrase did not find anyone inside. This could be interpreted to mean that the angel of the Lord led out not only the apostles but all of the criminals in the jail. Some translators have therefore preferred to render this as “did not find either of the apostles inside.” Note that in verse 24 the concern is only for the apostles who had apparently escaped.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Acts of the Apostles. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1972. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .