7. It is the promise that our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship night and day. And for this hope I am accused by Jewish people, O King!
8. Why is it judged incredible by any of you that God raises the dead?
9. “In fact, I myself thought it was necessary to do many things in opposition to the name of Yeshua ha-Natzrati.
10. And that is what I did in Jerusalem. Not only did I lock up many of the kedoshim in prisons by the authority I received from the ruling kohanim, but I cast my vote against them when they were being condemned to death.
11. I tried to cause them to blaspheme by punishing them often in the synagogues. In furious rage against them, I persecuted them even in foreign cities.
12. “While journeying to Damascus with the authority and commission of the ruling kohanim,
13. at midday, O King, I saw on the road a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and those traveling with me.
14. When we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against goads!’
15. “Then I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ “And the Lord said, ‘I am Yeshua—whom you are persecuting.
16. But get up, and stand on your feet. For I have appeared to you for this purpose—to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things you have seen as well as to the things I will yet reveal to you.
17. I will rescue you from your own people, and from the Gentiles to whom I am sending you,