Acts 26

1Agrippa said to Paul, “You have permission to speak on your own behalf.” So Paul held out his hand and began to make his defense: 2“King Agrippa, I count myself fortunate that it is before you that I am to answer today for all the charges some Jews bring against me, 3especially as you know well all the customs and disputed questions of the Jews. So I ask you to hear me out with patience.

4All Jews know how I have lived from my youth, from the very start of my life among my own people and in Jerusalem. 5They have known me a long time, and if they were willing they could testify that I lived as a Pharisee, in the strictest sect of our religion. 6And now I stand on trial because of my hope in the promise God made to our ancestors. 7It is the promise our twelve tribes hope to see fulfilled as they worship God with devotion night and day. It is for this hope, Your Majesty, that I am accused by Jews. 8Why do any of you think it unbelievable that God raises the dead? 9I myself was once convinced that I had to do all I could to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth, 10and that is what I did in Jerusalem. With authority from the chief priests I shut up many of God’s holy people in prison, and when they were condemned to die, I cast my vote against them. 11Again and again I had them punished in all the synagogues and tried to force them to blaspheme. My rage against them knew no bounds, and I hunted them down even in cities beyond our land.

12That was my mission when I was on my way to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. 13At noon, Your Majesty, as I traveled along the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and the men traveling with me. 14We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice speaking to me in Hebrew: ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It hurts you to kick against the goads.’ 15I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ The Lord answered, ‘I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting. 16But rise, stand up on your feet. I have shown myself to you for a purpose: to choose you as my assistant and my witness, to tell what you have seen of me and what I will yet show you of me. 17I will keep you safe from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them 18to open their eyes, so that they turn from darkness to light and from Satan’s power to God, and so receive forgiveness of their sins and a share in the inheritance among those sanctified by faith in me.’

19And so, King Agrippa, I did not resist the heavenly vision. 20I went first to the people of Damascus, then to Jerusalem and the whole country of Judea, and to the Gentiles too, and I told them all to repent and turn to God, and to live in a way that proves their repentance. 21It was for this that some Jews seized me in the temple and set about murdering me. 22God has helped me, and up to this very day I stand here bearing witness to people of low and high rank alike. I say only what the prophets and Moses foretold: 23that the Christ must suffer, and that, as the first to rise from the dead, he would announce light both to our own people and to the Gentiles.”

24As Paul was saying this in his defense, Festus called out loudly, “You are out of your mind, Paul! All your great learning is pushing you into madness.” 25“I am not mad, most excellent Festus,” Paul replied. “The words I am speaking are truth and sound sense. 26The king understands these matters, and that is why I can speak to him so openly. I am sure that nothing of this has passed him by. After all, it did not happen in some out-of-the-way corner. 27King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe them.” 28Agrippa said to Paul, “In so short a time you are persuading me to become a Christian!” 29Paul answered, “Whether it takes little or much, my prayer to God is that not you alone but every one of my hearers today would come to be as I am, though without these chains.”

30Then the king stood up, with the governor, Bernice and those seated with them. 31After they had gone out, they said to each other, “Nothing this man does calls for death or prison.” 32Agrippa told Festus, “This man might have gone free, had he not appealed to Caesar.”