1. Men, brethren, and fathers, hear you my defense which I make now unto you.
2. (And when they heard that he spoke in the Hebrew tongue to them, they kept the more silence: and he said,)
3. I am verily a man who is a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as you all are this day.
4. And I persecuted this way unto the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women.
5. As also the high priest does bear me witness, and all the council of the elders: from whom also I received letters unto the brethren, and went to Damascus, to bring them who were there bound unto Jerusalem, to be punished.
6. And it came to pass, that, as I made my journey, and was come near unto Damascus about noon, suddenly there shone from heaven a great light round about me.
7. And I fell unto the ground, and heard a voice saying unto me,