Acts 26:12-23

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Paul Tells of His Conversion

¹² “With this in mind, I was traveling to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests,^{(A) 13} when at midday along the road, Your Excellency,^[a] I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and my companions. ¹⁴ When we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew^[b] language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It hurts you to kick against the goads.’^{(B) 15} I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ The Lord answered, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. ¹⁶ But get up and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and testify to the things in which you have seen me^[c] and to those in which I will appear to you.^{(C) 17} I will rescue you from your people and from the gentiles—to whom I am sending you^{(D) 18} to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’^(E)

Paul Tells of His Preaching

¹⁹ “After that, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision ²⁰ but declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout the countryside of Judea, and also to the gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God and do deeds consistent with repentance.^{(F) 21} For this reason the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me.^{(G) 22} To this day I have had help from God, and so I stand here, testifying to both small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would take place:^{(H) 23} that the Messiah^[d] must suffer and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the gentiles.”^(I)