ACTS 26:4-18

⁴My manner of life then from my youth up, which was from the beginning among mine own nation, and at Jerusalem, know all the Jews;

⁵having knowledge of me from the first, if they be willing to testify, how that after the straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee.

⁶And now I stand here to be judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers;

⁷unto which promise our twelve tribes, earnestly serving God night and day, hope to attain. And concerning this hope I am accused by the Jews, O king!

⁸Why is it judged incredible with you, if God doth raise the dead?

⁹I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.

¹⁰And this I also did in Jerusalem: and I both shut up many of the saints in prisons, having received authority from the chief priests, and when they were put to death, I gave my vote against them.

¹¹And punishing them oftentimes in all the synagogues, I strove to make them blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto foreign cities.

¹²Whereupon as I journeyed to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests,

¹³at midday, O king, I saw on the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them that journeyed with me.

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

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

¹⁶But arise, and stand upon thy feet: for to this end have I appeared unto thee, to appoint thee a minister and a witness both of the things wherein thou hast seen me, and of the things wherein I will appear unto thee;

¹⁷delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom I send thee,

¹⁸to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive remission of sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in me.