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knowing how well you are acquainted with Jewish ways and all our family quarrels.
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"From the time of my youth, my life has been lived among my own people in Jerusalem.
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Practically every Jew in town who watched me grow up - and if they were willing to stick their necks out they'd tell you in person - knows that I lived as a strict Pharisee, the most demanding branch of our religion.
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It's because I believed it and took it seriously,
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committed myself heart and soul to what God promised my ancestors - the identical hope, mind you, that the twelve tribes have lived for night and day all these centuries - it's because I have held on to this tested and tried hope that I'm being called on the carpet by the Jews. They should be the ones standing trial here, not me!
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For the life of me, I can't see why it's a criminal offense to believe that God raises the dead.
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"I admit that I didn't always hold to this position. For a time I thought it was my duty to oppose this Jesus of Nazareth with all my might.
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Backed with the full authority of the high priests, I threw these believers - I had no idea they were God's people! - into the Jerusalem jail right and left, and whenever it came to a vote, I voted for their execution.
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I stormed through their meeting places, bullying them into cursing Jesus, a one-man terror obsessed with obliterating these people. And then I started on the towns outside Jerusalem.
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"One day on my way to Damascus, armed as always with papers from the high priests authorizing my action,
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right in the middle of the day a blaze of light, light outshining the sun, poured out of the sky on me and my companions. Oh, King, it was so bright!