12-13"Majesty, on such a journey I was travelling on the road to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests, when at about noon I saw a bright heavenly light, brighter even than the sun. It shone around me and my companions.14We all fell to the ground and I heard a voice speaking to me in Aramaic, 'Saul, Saul! Why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to keep kicking against a rock!'15"'Who are You, Lord?' I asked. 'I am Jesus, the One you persecute continually,' the Lord replied.16'Now stand to your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as My servant. You are to tell others what you have seen of Me and what I shall reveal to you in the future.17-18I will protect you from both your own people and the Gentiles. I am sending you to open their eyes and to turn them from their spiritual darkness to the light of the truth, from the devil's power to God, so they can receive forgiveness of their sins and be numbered among those who are made holy through their faith in Me!'19"So you see, king Agrippa, I have not been disobedient to the heavenly vision I received.20First in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout Judea and then among the Gentiles also, I have preached to people, telling them that they must repent. They must turn to God and prove that they have submitted themselves to Him by the evidence of the things they do.21"This is the reason why the Jews seized me in the temple courts with the intention of killing me.22-23But God has continued to help me right up to this present time, enabling me to stand here and testify to great and small alike. I teach nothing beyond what was predicted by Moses and the prophets, that the Messiah would suffer and would be the first to rise from the dead; that through Him the light might be made known to both His own people, the Jews, and to Gentiles alike."
Scripture quoted by permission. The passage above is taken from THE TRUTH VERSION. Copyright © 2009 by Colin Urquhart. All rights reserved worldwide. (The Truth New Testament)