Acts 26:1-27

¹Then Agrippa said to Paul, “All right, you can talk to us now and tell us your story.” Paul held out his hand and started to tell them why he was not guilty. He said,

²“Big boss Agrippa, I reckon I’m lucky. You know all about the culture of us Jews, and you know the things we argue about, and today you are hearing me talk. I reckon you will understand me. You see, the Jewish leaders are blaming me for a lot of things. So I ask you, please wait and listen to me now.”

⁴Then Paul said, “A lot of Jewish people know the way I used to live, from the time I was a young man. They know the way I lived in my home country, and also in Jerusalem.

⁵They know that I joined the mob called the Pharisees, and I kept our law properly, like all the Pharisees do. Those Jews that are blaming me know this, and they can tell you this about me if they want to.

⁶You see, boss, I believe that God will do everything that he promised to our grand-fathers of long ago. All of us Jews, in all of our 12 tribes, we are all waiting for God to do the thing he promised, and we show respect to him all the time. We know he will do it. And I really believe that too. But now those Jewish leaders are blaming me for believing it.

⁸You see, you mob don’t believe that God can make dead people alive again. But he can. Why can’t you believe it?”

⁹Paul kept talking, he said, “You know, at one time I thought I had to stop people from following Jesus, the man from Nazareth. I did a lot of things to try to stop them.

¹⁰I started in Jerusalem. I put a lot of Christians in jail. The bosses of the Jewish ceremonies told me to do that. And if they judged any of those Christians and said, ‘Kill them,’ I agreed with them, and I said that too.

¹¹I often punished the Christians that were in the Jewish meeting houses. I tried to get them to say bad things about Jesus. I was so angry with Jesus’s followers that I even went to other towns to get them.”

¹²Paul kept telling his story. He said, “The bosses of the Jewish ceremonies in Jerusalem said I can go to Damascus to grab the Christians there, so I started to go to Damascus to look for the Christians.

¹³And then, boss, while I was going along the road, about the middle of the day, I saw a bright light in the sky. It was even brighter than the sun. It shone all around me, and the men that were with me.

¹⁴We all fell down on to the ground. Then I heard the voice of somebody talking to me in the Hebrew language, he said, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you making trouble for me and hurting me? You are hurting yourself too, you know.’

¹⁵Then I asked, ‘Who are you, boss?’ That boss said to me, ‘I am Jesus. You are making trouble for me and hurting me. Whenever you hurt my followers, you are hurting me too.

¹⁶But stop doing that and get up, and stand on your feet. Listen, I came to you like this now to pick you to be my worker. I want you to tell everyone everywhere about the things you have seen, and tell them about the things that I will show you later.

¹⁷And if anyone tries to kill you, I will save you from them. I will save you from your own Jewish people, and I will save you from people that are not Jewish. You see, I will send you to other countries, to people that are not Jews,

¹⁸and you will tell them the true message about me. It will be like you will open their eyes to see things properly. They will come to God. Satan will not control them any more with his power, like they will not be in the dark any more, but they will be in the light. They will believe in me, and they will stop believing lies. And then God will say they are not guilty of the bad things they did, and they will be God’s people.’ Jesus said that to me.”

¹⁹Paul kept talking to them, he said, “It happened like that, Boss Agrippa. Jesus talked to me from heaven, and I did everything he told me to do.

²⁰I told a lot of people to stop doing bad things and turn to God, and to start doing good things to show that they are following God now. At first I told that message to the Jews in Damascus, then I told it to the Jews in Jerusalem, and I told it to the Jews in Judea country. After that, I told it to people that are not Jews.”

²¹And Paul said, “I told everyone this message, but some of the Jewish people didn’t like it, so they grabbed me and they tried to kill me. They did that in God’s ceremony house.

²²But God helped me. You see, God helps me all the time, and he is still helping me now. So I’m standing here now telling you mob about Jesus. I’m telling this message to you big bosses, and I’m telling it to all you other people too. I’m telling you that Jesus is the special person that God sent to us. That message is already in God’s book. I’m saying things that Moses and God’s other men wrote, a long time ago, about something that was going to happen, that people will hurt God’s special person and kill him, but then he will be the first person that God will make alive again. Then he will tell everyone that God can save them. In this way he will be like a light for them. He will be a light for both Jewish people, and people that are not Jews.”

²⁴While Paul was talking Festus suddenly shouted, “Paul, you are mad. You have been reading too much, and now you are mad.”

²⁵But Paul said, “No, Festus Sir, I’m not mad. I’m talking in a true and sensible way.

²⁶The big boss here knows about these things, so I can talk to him and I know he will understand. You see, people everywhere have heard about Jesus.”

²⁷Then Paul said, “Boss Agrippa, do you believe the message God’s men wrote in his book? Yes, I know you believe it.”