Acts 26:7-24

⁷which our twelve tribes, earnestly serving night and day, hope to attain. Concerning this hope I am accused by the Jews, King Agrippa!

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

⁹“I myself most certainly thought that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.

¹⁰I also did this in Jerusalem. 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.

¹¹Punishing them often in all the synagogues, I tried to make them blaspheme. Being exceedingly enraged against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities.

¹²“Whereupon as I travelled to Damascus with the authority and commission from the chief priests,

¹³at noon, O king, I saw on the way a light from the sky, brighter than the sun, shining around me and those who travelled with me.

¹⁴When we had all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’

¹⁵“I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ “He said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.

¹⁶But arise, and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose: to appoint you a servant and a witness both of the things which you have seen and of the things which I will reveal to you;

¹⁷delivering you from the people and from the Gentiles, to whom I send you,

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

¹⁹“Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision,

²⁰but declared first to them of Damascus, at Jerusalem, and throughout all the country of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, doing works worthy of repentance.

²¹For this reason the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me.

²²Having therefore obtained the help that is from God, I stand to this day testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would happen,

²³how the Christ must suffer, and how, by the resurrection of the dead, he would be first to proclaim light both to these people and to the Gentiles.”

²⁴As he thus made his defence, Festus said with a loud voice, “Paul, you are crazy! Your great learning is driving you insane!”