1Paul said, “You Jewish people, you are my brothers and my fathers. Please listen to me now while I tell you that I haven’t done anything wrong.”
2All those people heard Paul talking to them in their own Hebrew language, so they got quiet and listened to him. Then Paul said to them,
3“I am a Jew, just like you. I was born in Tarsus, in Cilicia country, but I grew up here in Jerusalem. I was a young man here, and I learned all our laws. You know that really good teacher called Gamaliel? Well, he taught me all the laws that Moses gave to our grand-fathers. And I wanted to always do everything God says, so I never broke any of those laws. I’m sure that all you mob properly follow those laws too.
4And I used to hurt anyone that followed Jesus, the people called the Jesus Way mob. Whenever I found them I grabbed them and put them in jail. I did that to men and to women too. I wanted to kill those people.
5The big boss of our Jewish ceremonies knows this, and so do the other men that belong to our Jewish council. They gave me letters to take to our Jewish brothers in Damascus. Those letters said I could grab the Christians there, and tie them up, and bring them to Jerusalem, and our leaders here will punish them. So I got some other men to join me and we were going along the road to Damascus.
6We were getting close to Damascus, about the middle of the day, then suddenly a bright light from the sky shone all around me.
7The light was so bright that I fell down to the ground. Then I heard the voice of somebody talking to me from the sky. He said, ‘Saul. Saul. Why are you making trouble for me and hurting me?’
8I asked him, ‘Who are you, boss?’ He said, ‘I am Jesus, from Nazareth. You are making trouble for me and hurting me.’
9The men that were with me saw that very bright light, and they heard that voice, but they didn’t understand anything the voice said to me.
10Then I said, ‘What do you want me to do, boss?’ That boss said, ‘Get up and go into Damascus. A man there will tell you everything that I want you to do.’
11That light was so bright it made me blind. I could not see, so the men with me held my hand and took me into Damascus.
12A man called Ananias lived in that town. He respected God, and he properly followed our Jewish laws. All the Jews living in Damascus said he was a good man.
13He came to me and stood beside me, and he said to me, ‘My friend Saul, you can see again now.’ Then I could see again. I looked up and saw him standing there beside me.
14Then he said, ‘The God that we respect, and the one our grand-fathers respected, he picked you, and he will show you everything he wants you to do. You will see that properly good man, and you will hear him talking to you.
15He wants you to tell everyone everywhere that you saw him and heard him.
16So now you can stop waiting. Stand up, and pray to our leader, Jesus, and ask God not to punish you for all the bad things you did. After that I will baptise you.’ That’s what Ananias said to me.”
17Paul kept talking to that mob. He said, “After that I went back to Jerusalem. One day I went to God’s ceremony house. While I was praying there, I had like a dream.
18I saw our leader, Jesus, and he was talking to me. He said, ‘Don’t stay here. Leave Jerusalem now. The people here will not believe anything you tell them about me.’
19I said to him, ‘But Sir, they know me. They know I went to a lot of our meeting houses looking for people that believe in you. I grabbed anyone that believed in you and I beat them up and put them in jail.
20The people here know about Stephen too. He told people about you, and they killed him. And I stood there watching them kill him, and I agreed with them. I even looked after the coats of the men that were killing him. So I reckon these Jerusalem people will not make trouble for me.’
21But Jesus said to me, ‘No, don’t stay here. Leave Jerusalem. You see, I’m sending you a long way from here. I’m sending you to people that are not Jews.’”
22The mob listened quietly to Paul until he said that. You see, they didn’t like people that were not Jews, so they got very angry with Paul and they started shouting, “Kill him. Don’t let this kind of man stay alive on this earth.”
23The mob kept on shouting, “Kill him.” And they took off their coats, and they threw dust into the air, to show that they were very angry.
24So the boss told his soldiers, “Take Paul into your big house and hit him with a whip so he will tell us why that mob are shouting at him.” The soldiers took Paul into their house,
25then they stretched his arms out and tied them so that they could whip his back. But Paul talked to the boss of the soldiers that was standing there. He said, “Wait. I’m a Jew, but I’m a Roman too. My name is in the book in a Roman office. But you didn’t try me in a court, and no judge said that I’m guilty, so if you whip me you will be breaking the Roman law.”
26That boss heard Paul’s words, then he went to the big boss and told him about Paul. He said, “This man is not just a Jew, he is a Roman too. Do you really want us to whip him?”
27The big boss heard that story and he was shocked. He went to Paul and said, “Tell me, are you really a Roman?” Paul said, “Yes, I am.”
28Then the big boss said, “I’m a Roman too. I paid a lot of money for them to write my name in the book in a Roman office, so now I’m a Roman.” Paul said, “I’ve been a Roman all my life. They wrote my name in that book as soon as I was born.”
29Those soldiers were going to whip Paul, but they heard him say he was a Roman, so they left him. The big boss was frightened too. He remembered that he told the soldiers to tie Paul’s arms and whip him, and it was against the law for him to do that to a Roman.
30The big boss of the soldiers still wanted to know why the Jews were blaming Paul, so the next day he told the bosses of the Jewish ceremonies, and the other Jewish council men, to have a meeting. Then he took Paul to that meeting and took his chains off, and told him to stand up in front of them, to listen to what they say, and to tell his story to answer them.
Google Play
APK