11. I visited all the synagogues and punished them, trying to make them curse Jesus. My anger against these people was so strong that I went to other cities to find them and punish them.
12. “One time the leading priests gave me permission and the authority to go to the city of Damascus.
13. On the way there, at noon, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun. It shined all around me and those traveling with me.
14. We all fell to the ground. Then I heard a voice talking to me in Aramaic. The voice said, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? You are only hurting yourself by fighting me.’
15. “I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ “The Lord said, ‘I am Jesus. I am the one you are persecuting.
16. Stand up! I have chosen you to be my servant. You will tell people about me—what you have seen today and what I will show you. This is why I have come to you.
17. I will keep you safe from your own people and from the non-Jewish people, the ones I am sending you to.
18. You will make them able to understand the truth. They will turn away from darkness to the light. They will turn away from the power of Satan, and they will turn to God. Then their sins can be forgiven, and they can be given a place among God’s people—those who have been made holy by believing in me.’”
19. Paul continued speaking: “King Agrippa, after I had this vision from heaven, I obeyed it.
20. I began telling people to change their hearts and lives and turn back to God. And I told them to do what would show that they had really changed. I went first to people in Damascus. Then I went to Jerusalem and to every part of Judea and told the people there. I also went to the non-Jewish people.
21. “This is why the Jews grabbed me and were trying to kill me at the Temple.
22. But God helped me, and he is still helping me today. With God’s help I am standing here today and telling all people what I have seen. But I am saying nothing new. I am saying only what Moses and the prophets said would happen.
23. They said that the Messiah would die and be the first to rise from death. They said that he would bring the light of God’s saving truth to the Jewish people and to the non-Jewish people.”