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having known me from the first, if they are willing to testify, that after the strictest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee.
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Now I stand here to be judged for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers,
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which our twelve tribes, earnestly serving night and day, hope to attain. Concerning this hope I am accused by the Jews, King Agrippa!
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Why is it judged incredible with you, if God does raise the dead?
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"I most assuredly thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
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This I also did in Jerusalem. 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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Punishing them often in all the synagogues, I tried to make them blaspheme. Being exceedingly enraged against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities.
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"Whereupon as I journeyed to Damascus with the authority and commission from the chief priests,
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at noon, O King, I saw on the way a light from the sky, brighter than the sun, shining around me and those who traveled with me.
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When we had all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goad.'
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I said, 'Who are you, Lord?' He said, 'I am Jesus, whom you persecute.