Acts 22:10-27

¹⁰So I said, ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ And the Lord said to me, ‘Get up and go into Damascus, and there you will be told about all that has been appointed to you to do.’

¹¹And since I could not see, because of the brightness of that light, I entered Damascus being led by the hand of those who were with me.

¹²Then a certain Ananias, a devout man according to the law, well spoken of by all the Jews who lived in Damascus,

¹³came to me, and standing by me said, ‘Brother Saul, receive your sight!’ And at that very moment I looked up at him.

¹⁴Then he said: ‘The God of our fathers has chosen you to know His will, and to see the Righteous One, and to hear words from His mouth.

¹⁵For you shall be a witness for Him to all men of the things that you have seen and heard.

¹⁶And now, why hesitate? Get up, be baptized and wash away your sins, invoking the name of the Lord.’

¹⁷“Now it happened, when I returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, that I came to be in a trance

¹⁸and saw Him saying to me, ‘Hurry up and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not receive your testimony concerning me.’

¹⁹So I said: ‘Lord, they know that I used to imprison and beat those believing into you, from one synagogue to another;

²⁰and when the blood of your witness Stephen was shed, I myself was standing there and agreeing to his murder, even guarding the clothes of those who were killing him.’

²¹And He said to me, ‘Get going, because I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’ ”

²²Well they kept listening to him until this statement, and then they raised their voice and shouted, “Rid the earth of this fellow, for it isn't fitting for him to live!”

²³As they were shouting, tearing off clothes and throwing dust into the air,

²⁴the commander ordered him to be taken into the barracks, directing that he be interrogated with lashes, in order to learn for what crime they kept shouting against him like that.

²⁵But as they stretched him out with the thongs, Paul said to the centurion who stood by, “Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman, and uncondemned?”

²⁶Well when the centurion heard that, he went and reported to the commander saying, “Consider what you are about to do, because this man is a Roman!”

²⁷So the commander went and said to him, “Tell me, are you a Roman?” So he said, “Yes.”