Acts 26:9-23

9Of course, I myself was convinced that it was necessary to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus the Nazarene.

10And that is what I did in Jerusalem: Not only did I lock up many of the saints in prisons by the authority I received from the chief priests, but I also cast my vote against them when they were sentenced to death.

11I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to force them to blaspheme. Because I was so furiously enraged at them, I went to persecute them even in foreign cities.

12“While doing this very thing, as I was going to Damascus with authority and complete power from the chief priests,

13about noon along the road, Your Majesty, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining everywhere around me and those traveling with me.

14When we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? You are hurting yourself by kicking against the goads.’

15So I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And the Lord replied, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.

16But get up and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for this reason, to designate you in advance as a servant and witness to the things you have seen and to the things in which I will appear to you.

17I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles, to whom I am sending you

18to open their eyes so that they turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a share among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

19“Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision,

20but I declared to those in Damascus first, and then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds consistent with repentance.

21For this reason the Jews seized me in the temple courts and were trying to kill me.

22I have experienced help from God to this day, and so I stand testifying to both small and great, saying nothing except what the prophets and Moses said was going to happen:

23that the Christ was to suffer and be the first to rise from the dead, to proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles.”