Acts 9:5-23

⁵“Who are you, Lord?” he asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” the voice answered;

⁶“Yet stand up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

⁷The men travelling with Saul were meanwhile standing speechless; they heard the sound of the voice, but saw no one.

⁸When Saul got up from the ground, though his eyes were open, he could see nothing. So his men led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus;

⁹and for three days he was unable to see, and took nothing either to eat or to drink.

¹⁰Now there was at Damascus a disciple named Ananias, to whom, in a vision, the Lord said, “Ananias.” “Yes, Lord,” he answered.

¹¹“Go at once,” said the Lord, “to the Straight Street, and ask at Judas's house for a man named Saul, from Tarsus. He is at this moment praying,

¹²and he has seen, in a vision, a man named Ananias coming in and placing his hands on him, so that he may recover his sight.”

¹³“Lord,” exclaimed Ananias, “I have heard from many people about this man — how much harm he has done at Jerusalem to your people there.

¹⁴And, here, too, he holds authority from the chief priests to put in chains all those who invoke your name.”

¹⁵But the Lord said to him, “Go, for this man is my chosen instrument to uphold my name before the Gentiles and their kings, and the people of Israel.

¹⁶I will myself show him all that he has to suffer for my name.”

¹⁷So Ananias went, entered the house, and, placing his hands on Saul, said, “Saul, my brother, I have been sent by the Lord — by Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here — so that you may recover your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”

¹⁸Instantly it seemed as if a film fell from Saul's eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptised,

¹⁹and, after he had taken food, he felt his strength return. Saul stayed for some days with the disciples who were at Damascus,

²⁰and at once began in the synagogues to proclaim Jesus as the Son of God.

²¹All who heard him were amazed. “Is not this,” they asked, “the man who worked havoc in Jerusalem amongst those that invoke this name, and who had also come here for the express purpose of having such persons put in chains and taken before the chief priests?”

²²Saul's influence, however, kept steadily increasing, and he confounded the Jewish people who lived in Damascus by the proofs that he gave that Jesus was the Christ.

²³After some time some of them laid a plot to kill Saul,