¹“Men and brothers, and fathers, hear my present defence to you.” ²And when they heard that he was addressing them in the Hebrew language, they kept all the more quiet. And he said, ³“I am a Jewish man who was born in Tarsus of Cilicia but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, educated according to the exactness of the ancestral law, being a zealot for God, as all of you are today, ⁴and I pursued this way as far as death, binding and committing both men and women to prison, ⁵as the high priest also testifies to me, as does the whole council of elders, from whom I also received letters addressed to the brothers, and I went to Damascus in order to also bring those there bound to Jerusalem for them to be punished. ⁶But it came to pass as I was going along and approaching Damascus at about midday, that suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. ⁷And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ ⁸And I answered, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And he said to me, ‘I am Jesus the Nazarene whom you are persecuting.’ ⁹And the people who were with me saw the light and became fearful, but they did not hear the voice of him who was speaking to me. ¹⁰And I said, ‘What am I to do, Lord?’ And the Lord said to me, ‘Get up and go to Damascus and there you will be told about all the things that have been appointed for you to do.’ ¹¹But as I could not see because of that dazzling light, I came to Damascus being led by the hand by those who were with me. ¹²And a certain Ananias, a man who was devout according to the law, held in high regard by all the Jewish inhabitants, ¹³came to me and stood by me and said to me, ‘Brother Saul, recover your sight.’ And at that very hour I recovered my sight and looked up at him. ¹⁴And he said, ‘The God of our fathers has appointed you to know his will and to see the just one and to hear a sound from his mouth, ¹⁵because you will be a witness to him towards all men of what you have seen and heard. ¹⁶And now, why do you delay? Get up and have yourself baptized and wash away your sins, calling upon the name of the Lord.’ ¹⁷And it happened that when I had returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, that I went into a trance, ¹⁸and I saw him saying to me, ‘Hurry up and depart from Jerusalem quickly, because they will not receive your witness concerning me.’ ¹⁹And I said, ‘Lord, they know that I used to imprison and flog those who believed in you as I went from synagogue to synagogue. ²⁰And when the blood of your witness Stephen was being shed, I myself was also standing by, approving of his elimination, while guarding the coats of those eliminating him.’ ²¹And he said to me, ‘Get going, for I will send you to Gentiles a long way off.’ ” ²²And they heard him as far as this word, then they raised their voices and said, “Remove a man like this from the face of the earth, for it is not proper that he should live.” ²³And as they were shouting and throwing their coats off and throwing dust into the air, ²⁴the cohort commander ordered him to be brought into the camp, ordering him to be interrogated with whips, so that he might ascertain the reason why they clamoured like that against him. ²⁵And when he had stretched him out, bound with thongs, Paul said to the centurion who was standing by, “Is it permitted for you to whip a man who is a Roman, and who has not been condemned?” ²⁶And when the centurion heard it, he went and told the cohort commander and said, “Watch what you are about to do. For this man is a Roman.” ²⁷Then the cohort commander came and said to him, “Tell me, are you a Roman?” And he said, “Yes.” ²⁸And the cohort commander answered, “I obtained this citizenship for a large sum of money.” Then Paul said, “But I was born with it.” ²⁹So those who were going to interrogate him immediately stood back from him, and the cohort commander was afraid, as he had ascertained that he was a Roman, and he had bound him. ³⁰And the next day, wishing to know the details of what he was being accused of by the Jews, he released him from his bonds and ordered the senior priests and the whole of their Sanhedrin council to come, and he brought Paul down and stood him before them.