Acts 26:3-16

³particularly because you are an expert in all Jewish issues and customs. I beg your patient indulgence as you listen to what I have to say.

⁴All the Jews know my life story—from my earliest days beginning in my own country and then in Jerusalem.

⁵They have known me for a long time and can verify, if they choose to, that I have followed the religious school that observes our faith in the strictest way—I lived as a Pharisee.

⁶Now I am standing here to be judged regarding the promised hope God gave to our fathers

⁷that our twelve tribes hoped to receive as they continually dedicated themselves in God's service. Yes, it's because of this hope that I'm accused by the Jews, Your Majesty!

⁸Why should any of you think it's unbelievable that God raises the dead?

⁹Previously I was sincerely convinced I should do as much as I could to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth.

¹⁰This is what I did in Jerusalem. I threw many of the believers in prison, having been given authority to do this by the chief priests. When they were sentenced to death I cast my vote against them.

¹¹I had them punished in all the synagogues, trying to make them recant. I was so furiously opposed to them that I went to cities outside our country to persecute them.

¹²That's why one day I was on my way to Damascus with the authority and orders from the chief priests.

¹³At about noon as I was on my way, Your Majesty, I saw a light from heaven that blazed brighter than the sun. It shone around me and those who were traveling with me.

¹⁴All of us fell to the ground. Then I heard a voice speaking to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It's hard for you to fight against me!’

¹⁵‘Who are you, Lord?’ I asked. ‘I am Jesus, the one you're persecuting,’ the Lord replied.

¹⁶‘But pick yourself up and get to your feet. The reason why I've appeared to you is to appoint you as my servant, to be a witness for me, telling others how you have seen me and everything I will reveal to you.