Acts 26:12–20

12 “On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. 13 About noon, King Agrippa, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. 14 We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voicei saying to me in Aramaic,a j ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’

15 “Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’

“ ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied. 16 ‘Now get up and stand on your feet.k I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me.l 17 I will rescue youm from your own people and from the Gentiles.n I am sending you to them 18 to open their eyeso and turn them from darkness to light,p and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sinsq and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’r

19 “So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedients to the vision from heaven. 20 First to those in Damascus,t then to those in Jerusalemu and in all Judea, and then to the Gentiles,v I preached that they should repentw and turn to God and demonstrate their repentance by their deeds.x