የሐዋርያት ሥራ 26

Paul makes his defense before Agrippa

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.^ab

A light from heaven on the road to Damascus

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?^c It hurts you to kick against the goads.’^{de 15}I 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.’^fgh

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.^{i 21}It 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.”^j

Festus interrupts, and Paul appeals to the king

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!”^{klm 29}Paul 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.”ⁿ

Nothing deserving death or 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.”