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“On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests.
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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.
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We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic,[a]‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’
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“Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ “ ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied.
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‘Now get up and stand on your feet. 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.
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I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them
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to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’
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“So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven.
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First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and then to the Gentiles, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and demonstrate their repentance by their deeds.