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📚Then Agrippa said to Paul, “You are permitted to speak for yourself”. Then Paul stretched out a hand and answered for himself: 2 “I count myself happy, King Agrippa, because I will answer for myself this day before you concerning everything of which I am accused by the Jews, 3 📚especially because I know you are an expert in all the customs and questions existing among the Jews. Therefore I ask you to hear me patiently.4 📚✭“All the Jews know my manner of life from my youth, which in the beginning was spent in my own nation at Jerusalem. 5 📚They knew me from the beginning, if they were willing to testify, that according to the most strict sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee. 6 📚And now I stand and am being judged for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers. 7 📚✭To this promise our twelve tribes, earnestly worshipping day and night, hope to come. For the sake of this hope, King Agrippa, I am accused by the Jews.
8 📚✭“Why should you think it an incredible thing that God would raise the dead?
9 📚✭“I indeed thought myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth, 10 📚which I also did in Jerusalem. And I imprisoned many of the saints, having received authority from the chief priests. And when they were put to death, I gave my vote against them. 11 📚✭And often I punished them in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme, and being exceedingly enraged against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities. 12 📚On this work, while I travelled to Damascus with authority and a commission from the chief priests, 13 📚at midday, O king, while on the road I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and those who were travelling with me. 14 📚✭And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’
15 📚“And I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’
“And he said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. 16 📚✭But rise and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for the purpose of making you a servant and a witness both of these things which you have seen and of those things I will yet reveal to you, 17 📚delivering you from the people, and from the Gentiles to whom I now send you, 18 📚✭to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’
19 📚✭“Therefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, 20 📚✭but declared first to those in Damascus, and in Jerusalem, and throughout all the area of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God and do deeds appropriate to repentance. 21 📚For these causes the Jews seized me in the temple, and attempted to kill me. 22 📚Therefore, having obtained help from God, I continue to this day, witnessing to both small✭ and great, saying nothing but the things that the prophets and Moses said would come, 23 📚that Christ would suffer, and that he would be the first who would rise from the dead, and would give light✭ to the people, and to the Gentiles”.
24 📚✭And as he thus made his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, “Paul, you are out of your mind. Much learning is driving you insane!”
25 📚✭But he said, “I am not insane, most noble Festus, but speak words of truth and sanity. 26 📚✭For the king knows of these things, before whom I also speak freely. For I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him, because this thing was not done in a corner. 27 📚King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe”.
28 📚✭Then Agrippa said to Paul, “Almost you persuade me to become a Christian”.
29 📚✭And Paul said, “I would to God that not only you, but also all who are listening to me this day, were both almost and altogether such as I am, except for these bonds”.
30 📚And when he had said this, the king and the governor and Bernice and those who were seated with them, got up, 31 📚and when they had gone aside, they talked among themselves, saying, “This man is doing nothing worthy of death or imprisonment”. 32 📚Then Agrippa said to Festus, “This man might have been set free, if he had not appealed to Caesar”.