Book of Common Prayer

King Agrippa hears Paul, who describes his calling from the beginning.

26 Agrippa said to Paul, You are permitted to speak for yourself. Then Paul stretched forth his hand and answered for himself:

² I think myself fortunate, King Agrippa, because I may answer this day before you to all the things I am accused of by the Jews, ³ especially because you are expert in all the customs and questions that are among the Jews. Therefore I beseech you to hear me patiently.

⁴ My life from my childhood, which was at first among my own nation at Jerusalem, all the Jews ⁵ who knew me from the beginning know, if they would testify it. For in accordance with the most strict sect of our religion, I lived as a Pharisee. ⁶ And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers, ⁷ to which promise our twelve tribes, earnestly serving God day and night, hope to attain. For which hope’s sake, King Agrippa, I am accused by the Jews. ⁸ Why should it be thought a thing incredible to you, that God should raise the dead up again?

⁹ I also truly thought in myself that I ought to do many things to utterly oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth – ¹⁰ which things I also did in Jerusalem, where I shut up many of the saints in prison, having received authority from the high priests. And when they were put to death, I joined in giving the sentence. ¹¹ And I punished them often in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme, and was even more mad upon them, and persecuted them even to distant cities.

¹² In going about these things, as I was going to Damascus with leave and authority from the high priests, ¹³ at midday, O King, I saw in the road a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining round about me and those who were journeying with me. ¹⁴ When we had all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking to me and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the pricks. ¹⁵ And I said, Who are you, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom you persecute. ¹⁶ But rise and stand up on your feet. For I have appeared to you for this purpose: to make you a minister and a witness both of those things you have seen, and of those things in which I will appear to you, ¹⁷ delivering you from the people, and from the Gentiles to whom I now send you, ¹⁸ to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, and may receive forgiveness of sins, and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me.

¹⁹ And so, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, ²⁰ but preached first to those of Damascus, and then at Jerusalem, and throughout all the country of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do the right works of repentance. ²¹ Because of this, the Jews caught me in the temple and went about to kill me. ²² Nevertheless, I obtained help from God, and continue to this day witnessing both to small and to great, speaking of no other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say would come: ²³ that Christ would suffer, and that he would be the first to rise from death, and would show light to the people and to the Gentiles.

²⁶ And they sailed to the region of the Gadarenes, which is across from Galilee. ²⁷ And as he went out to land, there met him a certain man from the place, who had for a long time had a devil. And he wore no clothes; neither did he live in a house, but among graves. ²⁸ When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him, and with a loud voice said, What have I to do with you, Jesus, Son of the God Most High? I beseech you, torment me not! ²⁹ For Jesus commanded the foul spirit to come out of the man. For it often affected him violently, and he was bound with chains and kept with shackles, but he broke the bonds, and was carried by the fiend into wilderness areas.

³⁰ And Jesus asked him, saying, What is your name? And he said, Legion (because many devils were entered into him). ³¹ And the devils besought Jesus not to command them to go out into the deep. ³² There was nearby a herd of many swine feeding on a hill, and the devils besought him to suffer them to enter into the swine. And he suffered them. ³³ Then the devils went out of the man and entered into the swine. And the herd took their course and ran headlong into the lake, and were drowned.

³⁴ When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the town and in the villages. ³⁵ And people came out to see what had been done, and came to Jesus, and found the man out of whom the devils were departed sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. ³⁶ Those also who had witnessed it told them how the demon-possessed man was healed. ³⁷ And all the whole population from the country of the Gadarenes besought Jesus to depart from them, for they were taken with great fear.

And he got into the boat and turned back again. ³⁸ Then the man from whom the devils were departed asked him if he could be with him. But Jesus sent him away, saying, ³⁹ Go home again into your own house, and show what great things God has done for you.

And the man went his way, and preached throughout all the city about the great things Jesus had done for him.