The Good News Translation, the Jerusalem Bible, and the New English Bible have translated the pronoun “him” as Paul to clear up a possible ambiguity from the point of the English reader (note the Revised Standard Version “then he gave orders to the centurion that he should be kept in custody”).

It is difficult to determine precisely what is involved in to give him some freedom. This could involve “freedom to go in and out of the prison” or “freedom from being guarded so closely.” Some translators may want to render this as “to be considered like a person who was not a prisoner, even though he was still being guarded.”

Allow his friends to provide for his needs is actually given in the Greek in a negative statement, “and to prevent none of his friends from providing for his needs,” but in English this is stated much more naturally in the positive. This last clause may be rendered as “to permit his friends to help Paul in any way they wanted to.”

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 .