Acts 26:3-16

³especially because thou art acquainted with all the customs and questions which are among the Jews; wherefore I beseech thee to hear me patiently.

⁴My manner of life then from my youth, which from its commencement was passed among my nation in Jerusalem, know all the Jews,

⁵who knew me before from the outset of my life, if they would bear witness, that according to the strictest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee.

⁶And now I stand to be judged because of the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers,

⁷to which our whole twelve tribes serving incessantly day and night hope to arrive; about which hope, O king, I am accused of the Jews.

⁸Why should it be judged a thing incredible in your sight if God raises the dead?

⁹I indeed myself thought that I ought to do much against the name of Jesus the Nazaraean.

¹⁰Which also I did in Jerusalem, and myself shut up in prisons many of the saints, having received the authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death I gave my vote.

¹¹And often punishing them in all the synagogues, I compelled them to blaspheme. And, being exceedingly furious against them, I persecuted them even to cities out of our own land.

¹²And when, engaged in this, I was journeying to Damascus, with authority and power from the chief priests,

¹³at mid-day, on the way, I saw, O king, a light above the brightness of the sun, shining from heaven round about me and those who were journeying with me.

¹⁴And, when we were all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against goads.

¹⁵And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest:

¹⁶but rise up and stand on thy feet; for, for this purpose have I appeared to thee, to appoint thee to be a servant and a witness both of what thou hast seen, and of what I shall appear to thee in,