13. For you have heard of my earlier behavior in Judaism—how I persecuted God’s community beyond measure and tried to destroy it.
14. I was even advancing within Judaism beyond many my own age among my people, being a more extreme observer of my fathers’ traditions.
15. But when God—who set me apart from birth and called me through His grace—was pleased
16. to reveal His Son to me so I would proclaim Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with any human.
17. I did not go up to Jerusalem to those who were emissaries before me, either. Instead I went away to Arabia and returned again to Damascus.
18. Then three years later I went to Jerusalem to visit with Peter, and I stayed with him fifteen days.
19. But I saw no other emissaries except Jacob, the Lord’s brother.
20. (In what I’m writing you, before God, I do not lie.)
21. Then I went to the regions of Syria and Cilicia.
22. But I was personally unknown to Messiah’s communities of Judea;