Acts 25:2

And the chief priests and the principal men of the Jews informed him against Paul; and they besought him, asking a favor of him, that he would send for him to Jerusalem; laying a plot to kill him on the way.

The pressure of this request from the leading Jews was implicit in the fact that they were powerful enough to have "brought about the removal of Festus' predecessor";[3] and they doubtless thought they could take advantage of Festus' newness in office and his natural desire to please such an important group of his subjects.

Laying a plot to kill him ... Festus, of course, had no idea whatever of the murderous duplicity and cunning deceit of the religious apparatus in the Judean capital. He should have known that the "favor" they had asked of him was based upon some damnable scheme of their own; but Festus seems to have accepted their request as honorable. It was his jealousy for his own prerogatives which led him to deny their request, as in the next verse.