1. `Men, brethren, and fathers, hear my defence now unto you;' --
2. and they having heard that in the Hebrew dialect he was speaking to them, gave the more silence, and he saith, --
3. `I, indeed, am a man, a Jew, having been born in Tarsus of Cilicia, and brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, having been taught according to the exactitude of a law of the fathers, being zealous of God, as all ye are to-day.
4. `And this way I persecuted unto death, binding and delivering up to prisons both men and women,
5. as also the chief priest doth testify to me, and all the eldership; from whom also having received letters unto the brethren, to Damascus, I was going on, to bring also those there bound to Jerusalem that they might be punished,
6. and it came to pass, in my going on and coming nigh to Damascus, about noon, suddenly out of the heaven there shone a great light round about me,
7. I fell also to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why me dost thou persecute?
8. `And I answered, Who art thou, Lord? and he said unto me, I am Jesus the Nazarene whom thou dost persecute--