Acts 26:9–20

⁹“I too was convinced^b that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose^c the name of Jesus of Nazareth.^{d 10}And that is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the Lord’s people^e in prison,^f and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them.^{g 11}Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished,^h and I tried to force them to blaspheme. I was so obsessed with persecuting them that I even hunted them down in foreign cities.

¹²“On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. ¹³About 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. ¹⁴We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voiceⁱ saying to me in Aramaic,^aj ‘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 you^m from your own people and from the Gentiles.ⁿ I am sending you to them ¹⁸to open their eyes^o and turn them from darkness to light,^p and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins^q and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’^r

¹⁹“So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient^s to the vision from heaven. ²⁰First to those in Damascus,^t then to those in Jerusalem^u and in all Judea, and then to the Gentiles,^v I preached that they should repent^w and turn to God and demonstrate their repentance by their deeds.^x