ActsChapter 22

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¹"Brothers and fathers, listen now as I defend myself to you." ²They heard him speaking to them in Hebrew. So they became even quieter. Then Paul said, ³"I am a Jew. I was born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but I grew up in this city. I studied under Gamaliel. He taught me to keep the law of our fathers very strictly. I was just as eager to serve God as any of you are today. ⁴I attacked the people of this Way, even to the point of death. I arrested both men and women and threw them into prison. ⁵The high priest and the whole Council can tell you this is true. I even got letters from them to their brothers in Damascus. I went there to arrest these people. I was going to bring them back to Jerusalem to be punished. ⁶About noon I was coming near Damascus. Suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed all around me. ⁷I fell to the ground. I heard a voice say to me, 'Saul, Saul, why are you attacking me?' ⁸'Who are you, Lord?' I asked. 'I am Jesus of Nazareth, the one you are attacking,' he answered. ⁹The men with me saw the light. But they did not understand the voice of the one speaking to me. ¹⁰Then I asked, 'What should I do, Lord?' 'Get up and go into Damascus,' he told me. 'There you will be told all that you have been chosen to do.' ¹¹The light was so bright that it made me blind. So the men with me led me by the hand into Damascus. ¹²A man named Ananias lived there. He was a faithful man who obeyed the law. All the Jews living there thought well of him. ¹³He came and stood beside me. 'Brother Saul,' he said, 'receive your sight!' At that moment I could see him. ¹⁴Then he said, 'The God of our fathers has chosen you. You will know his will. You will see the Righteous One and hear his voice. ¹⁵You will be his witness to everyone. You will tell what you have seen and heard. ¹⁶So what are you waiting for? Get up and be baptized. Call on his name, and wash your sins away.' ¹⁷Later I went back to Jerusalem. I was praying at the temple, and I fell into a trance. ¹⁸I saw the Lord. He said to me, 'Hurry! Leave Jerusalem quickly, because the people here will not accept what you tell them about me.' ¹⁹'Lord,' I answered, 'they know very well what I did. I went from synagogue to synagogue. I put those who believed in you in prison and beat them. ²⁰Your witness Stephen was killed, and his blood was spilled. I stood there and agreed with it. I watched the coats of those who killed him.' ²¹Then the Lord said to me, 'Go! I will send you far away to the Gentiles.'" ²²The crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they began to shout, "Get rid of him! Wipe him off the earth! He doesn't deserve to live!" ²³They were shouting and throwing off their coats. They were throwing dust into the air. ²⁴So the commander ordered that Paul be taken into the barracks. He said Paul should be whipped and questioned. He wanted to find out why the people were shouting at him like this. ²⁵They stretched him out and tied him down to whip him. Then Paul said to the centurion standing there, "Is it lawful for you to whip a Roman citizen? He hasn't even had a trial!" ²⁶When the centurion heard this, he went to the commander and told him. "What are you going to do?" he asked. "This man is a Roman citizen." ²⁷The commander went to Paul and asked, "Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?" "Yes, I am," Paul answered. ²⁸"I paid a lot of money to become a citizen," the commander said. "But I was born a citizen," Paul answered. ²⁹Right away the men who were going to question Paul backed away. The commander himself was afraid. He knew he had put a Roman citizen in chains. ³⁰The commander wanted to find out the real reason the Jews were accusing Paul. So the next day he set him free. He ordered the chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin to meet. Then he brought Paul down and had him stand in front of them.