Acts 9:11-23

¹¹And Jesus said to him, “I want you to get up and go to Straight Street, to the house that Judas lives in, and find a man there from the town called Tarsus. His name is Saul, and he is praying to me right now.

¹²He had like a dream, and he saw you, and he heard your name Ananias, and he saw you come and put your hands on him, to make him see again.”

¹³But Ananias said, “What? Hey, Jesus, people have told me about that man called Saul. He’s a properly cheeky man. He hurt your people in Jerusalem and did a lot of bad things to them.

¹⁴And the leaders of the Jewish ceremonies told him he can grab all the people here that believe in you, and take them to jail. He came here now to do just that.”

¹⁵But Jesus said to Ananias, “Don’t worry. Go to him anyway. You see, I picked that man to be my special worker. He will tell a lot of people about me. He will tell Jewish people about me, and he will even tell those people that are not Jews about me. And he will tell the bosses of their countries about me too.

¹⁶I will show him that some people will not like him talking about me, so they will give him big trouble and hurt him.”

¹⁷So Ananias got up and went to that house that Judas lived in, and he went inside, and he put his hands on Saul, and he said, “Brother Saul. You saw Jesus on the road as you were coming here. Well, he has sent me so that you can see again, and the Holy Spirit will come into you and fill you.”

¹⁸Then something like fish scales, or like finger nails, they fell down from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up, and they baptised him.

¹⁹Then he ate some food and he got strong again. Saul stayed in Damascus for a few days with the people that followed Jesus.

²⁰Straight away he started talking to the Jews in their meeting places. He told them, “Jesus is God’s son.”

²¹All the Jews that heard him were really shocked. They said, “Hey, this man has really changed. He’s the man that really hurt the people in Jerusalem that followed Jesus. And he came here to grab the people that follow Jesus here. He was going to tie them up with chains and take them back to the Jewish bosses in Jerusalem.”

²²But Saul told those people about Jesus, and he got better and better at talking to them. The Jews in Damascus argued with him, but he showed them that Jesus really is the man that God promised to send. Those Jews couldn’t show that he was wrong, and they got worried and upset.

²³After that some Jews talked with each other about killing Saul. There was a big wall around that town with some gates in it. Every day and every night the Jews watched those gates. They thought they might see Saul going out of the town, and then they will catch him and kill him. But somebody told Saul about them.