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having knowledge of me from the first, if they be willing to testify, that after the straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee.
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And now I stand [here] to be judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers;
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unto which [promise] our twelve tribes, earnestly serving [God] night and day, hope to attain. And concerning this hope I am accused by the Jews, O king!
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Why is it judged incredible with you, if God doth raise the dead?
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I verily thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
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And this I also did in Jerusalem: and I both shut up many of the saints in prisons, having received authority from the chief priests, and when they were put to death I gave my vote against them.
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And punishing them oftentimes in all the synagogues, I strove to make them blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto foreign cities.
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Whereupon as I journeyed to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests,
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at midday, O king, I saw on the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them that journeyed with me.
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And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice saying unto me in the Hebrew language,
Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the goad.
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And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said,
I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.