Acts 26:1-16 ▼

1 Then Agrippa said to Paul, you are at liberty to make your defence, upon which Paul disengaging his hand from his cloak, thus made his plea.

2 I think myself happy, king Agrippa, in having this opportunity of vindicating myself in your presence, from every thing the Jews have laid to my charge:

3 for I know you are fully acquainted with the Jewish customs and controversies: and therefore I beg the indulgence of your attention.

4 what course of life I led at Jerusalem, where I was brought up from my youth among those of my own nation, is known to all the Jews.

5 they can testify, if they will, that I early profess'd myself a Pharisee, a member of the most rigorous sect of our religion:

6 and now I stand arraign'd for expecting the accomplishment of the divine promise made to our fathers,

7 which our twelve tribes by their continual services, night and day, hope themselves to obtain: yet for that hope, king Agrippa, do the Jews now accuse me.

8 you may think it something incredible that God should raise the dead:

9 I myself too once thought myself oblig'd strenuously to oppose the professors of Jesus the Nazarene, as I actually did at Jerusalem,

10 where numbers of converts I threw into jail, by warrant from the high priests: and when they were put to death, I myself was an accomplice.

11 it was I that persecuted them from synagogue to synagogue, and tortured them even to blaspheme: and in the transport of my rage I pursued them to foreign cities.

12 with such views, authorized by commission from the high priests, I was on the road to Damascus:

13 when at mid-day, O king, a light from heaven exceeding the splendor of the sun, broke all around me, and those that accompanied me.

14 we were all struck down: when I heard a voice directed to me pronounce these words in the Hebrew tongue, "Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute me? it is dangerous for thee to kick against the goad."

15 I answer'd, who art thou, Lord? he said, "I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest.

16 but rise upright upon thy feet: for I have appear'd to thee in order to establish you my minister in testifying both what you have seen, and what I shall hereafter show to you,