2. I think myself happy, king Agrippa, that I am to make my defence before thee this day touching all the things whereof I am accused by the Jews:
3. especially because thou art expert in all customs and questions which are among the Jews: wherefore I beseech thee to hear me patiently.
4. My manner of life then from my youth up, which was from the beginning among mine own nation, and at Jerusalem, know all the Jews;
5. having knowledge of me from the first, if they be willing to testify, how that after the straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee.
6. And now I stand here to be judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers;
7. unto which promise our twelve tribes, earnestly serving God night and day, hope to attain. And concerning this hope I am accused by the Jews, O king!
8. Why is it judged incredible with you, if God doth raise the dead?
9. I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
10. And this I also did in Jerusalem: and I both shut up many of the saints in prisons, having received authority from the chief priests, and when they were put to death, I gave my vote against them.
11. And punishing them oftentimes in all the synagogues, I strove to make them blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto foreign cities.
12. Whereupon as I journeyed to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests,
13. at midday, O king, I saw on the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them that journeyed with me.
14. And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice saying unto me in the Hebrew language, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the goad.
15. And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.