Acts 26:3-9

³especially because you are expert in all the Jewish customs and issues; therefore I beg you to hear me patiently.

⁴Really, the Jews all know my way of life from my youth, which was spent from the beginning among my own nation in Jerusalem,

⁵since they have known me for a long time, if they were willing to testify, that according to the strictest sect of our religion I lived as a Pharisee.

⁶And now I stand here being judged for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers,

⁷to which our twelve tribes, earnestly serving God night and day, hope to attain. It is because of this hope that I am accused by the Jews, King Agrippa.

⁸Why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?

⁹“However, I myself thought that I had to perpetrate many things in opposition to the name of Jesus the Natsorean;