Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹ “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.

²In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?

³And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

⁴And you know the way to where I am going.”

⁵Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

⁶Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

⁷ If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

⁸Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.”

⁹Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

¹⁰Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.

¹¹Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.

¹²“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.

¹³ Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

¹⁴ If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

¹⁵ “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

¹⁶And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,

¹⁷even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

¹⁸“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

¹⁹ Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.

²⁰ In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.

²¹ Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

²²Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?”

²³Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

²⁴Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me.

²⁵“These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you.

²⁶But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

²⁷ Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

²⁸ You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.

²⁹And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe.

³⁰I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me,

³¹but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here.

¹When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”

²So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.”

³So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron.

⁴And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”

⁵When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD.”

⁶And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.

⁷And the LORD said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.

⁸They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’”

⁹And the LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people.

¹⁰Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”

¹¹But Moses implored the LORD his God and said, “O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?

¹²Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people.

¹³Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, to whom you swore by your own self, and said to them, ‘I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your offspring, and they shall inherit it forever.’”

¹⁴And the LORD relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.

¹⁵Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets that were written on both sides; on the front and on the back they were written.

¹⁶The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.

¹⁷When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is a noise of war in the camp.”

¹⁸But he said, “It is not the sound of shouting for victory, or the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing that I hear.”

¹⁹And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses' anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.

²⁰He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it.

²¹And Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them?”

²²And Aaron said, “Let not the anger of my lord burn hot. You know the people, that they are set on evil.

²³For they said to me, ‘Make us gods who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’

²⁴So I said to them, ‘Let any who have gold take it off.’ So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf.”

²⁵And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, to the derision of their enemies),

²⁶then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, “Who is on the LORD's side? Come to me.” And all the sons of Levi gathered around him.

²⁷And he said to them, “Thus says the LORD God of Israel, ‘Put your sword on your side each of you, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor.’”

²⁸And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And that day about three thousand men of the people fell.

²⁹And Moses said, “Today you have been ordained for the service of the LORD, each one at the cost of his son and of his brother, so that he might bestow a blessing upon you this day.”

³⁰The next day Moses said to the people, “You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.”

³¹So Moses returned to the LORD and said, “Alas, this people has sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold.

³²But now, if you will forgive their sin — but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.”

³³But the LORD said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book.

³⁴But now go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you; behold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them.”

³⁵Then the LORD sent a plague on the people, because they made the calf, the one that Aaron made.

¹What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh?

²For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

³For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”

⁴Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due.

⁵And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,

⁶just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:

⁷“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered;

⁸blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”

⁹Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness.

¹⁰How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised.

¹¹He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well,

¹²and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

¹³For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.

¹⁴For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.

¹⁵For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.

¹⁶That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring — not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,

¹⁷as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations” — in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

¹⁸In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.”

¹⁹He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb.

²⁰No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God,

²¹fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

²²That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”

²³But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone,

²⁴but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord,

²⁵who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

¹But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.

²For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,

³heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good,

⁴treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,

⁵having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.

⁶For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions,

⁷always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

⁸Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith.

⁹But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.

¹⁰You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness,

¹¹my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra — which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me.

¹²Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,

¹³while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

¹⁴But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it

¹⁵and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

¹⁶All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

¹⁷that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

¹Then Zophar the Naamathite answered and said:

²“Therefore my thoughts answer me, because of my haste within me.

³I hear censure that insults me, and out of my understanding a spirit answers me.

⁴Do you not know this from of old, since man was placed on earth,

⁵that the exulting of the wicked is short, and the joy of the godless but for a moment?

⁶Though his height mount up to the heavens, and his head reach to the clouds,

⁷he will perish forever like his own dung; those who have seen him will say, ‘Where is he?’

⁸He will fly away like a dream and not be found; he will be chased away like a vision of the night.

⁹The eye that saw him will see him no more, nor will his place any more behold him.

¹⁰His children will seek the favor of the poor, and his hands will give back his wealth.

¹¹His bones are full of his youthful vigor, but it will lie down with him in the dust.

¹²“Though evil is sweet in his mouth, though he hides it under his tongue,

¹³though he is loath to let it go and holds it in his mouth,

¹⁴yet his food is turned in his stomach; it is the venom of cobras within him.

¹⁵He swallows down riches and vomits them up again; God casts them out of his belly.

¹⁶He will suck the poison of cobras; the tongue of a viper will kill him.

¹⁷He will not look upon the rivers, the streams flowing with honey and curds.

¹⁸He will give back the fruit of his toil and will not swallow it down; from the profit of his trading he will get no enjoyment.

¹⁹For he has crushed and abandoned the poor; he has seized a house that he did not build.

²⁰“Because he knew no contentment in his belly, he will not let anything in which he delights escape him.

²¹There was nothing left after he had eaten; therefore his prosperity will not endure.

²²In the fullness of his sufficiency he will be in distress; the hand of everyone in misery will come against him.

²³To fill his belly to the full, God will send his burning anger against him and rain it upon him into his body.

²⁴He will flee from an iron weapon; a bronze arrow will strike him through.

²⁵It is drawn forth and comes out of his body; the glittering point comes out of his gallbladder; terrors come upon him.

²⁶Utter darkness is laid up for his treasures; a fire not fanned will devour him; what is left in his tent will be consumed.

²⁷The heavens will reveal his iniquity, and the earth will rise up against him.

²⁸The possessions of his house will be carried away, dragged off in the day of God's wrath.

²⁹This is the wicked man's portion from God, the heritage decreed for him by God.”

¹God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:

²“How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah

³Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.

⁴Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

⁵They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

⁶I said, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you;

⁷nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.”

⁸Arise, O God, judge the earth; for you shall inherit all the nations!

¹Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise.

²The terror of a king is like the growling of a lion; whoever provokes him to anger forfeits his life.

³It is an honor for a man to keep aloof from strife, but every fool will be quarreling.

⁴The sluggard does not plow in the autumn; he will seek at harvest and have nothing.

⁵The purpose in a man's heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.

⁶Many a man proclaims his own steadfast love, but a faithful man who can find?

⁷The righteous who walks in his integrity — blessed are his children after him!

⁸A king who sits on the throne of judgment winnows all evil with his eyes.

⁹Who can say, “I have made my heart pure; I am clean from my sin”?

¹⁰Unequal weights and unequal measures are both alike an abomination to the LORD.

¹¹Even a child makes himself known by his acts, by whether his conduct is pure and upright.

¹²The hearing ear and the seeing eye, the LORD has made them both.

¹³Love not sleep, lest you come to poverty; open your eyes, and you will have plenty of bread.

¹⁴“Bad, bad,” says the buyer, but when he goes away, then he boasts.

¹⁵There is gold and abundance of costly stones, but the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel.

¹⁶Take a man's garment when he has put up security for a stranger, and hold it in pledge when he puts up security for foreigners.

¹⁷Bread gained by deceit is sweet to a man, but afterward his mouth will be full of gravel.

¹⁸Plans are established by counsel; by wise guidance wage war.

¹⁹Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets; therefore do not associate with a simple babbler.

²⁰If one curses his father or his mother, his lamp will be put out in utter darkness.

²¹An inheritance gained hastily in the beginning will not be blessed in the end.

²²Do not say, “I will repay evil”; wait for the LORD, and he will deliver you.

²³Unequal weights are an abomination to the LORD, and false scales are not good.

²⁴A man's steps are from the LORD; how then can man understand his way?

²⁵It is a snare to say rashly, “It is holy,” and to reflect only after making vows.

²⁶A wise king winnows the wicked and drives the wheel over them.

²⁷The spirit of man is the lamp of the LORD, searching all his innermost parts.

²⁸Steadfast love and faithfulness preserve the king, and by steadfast love his throne is upheld.

²⁹The glory of young men is their strength, but the splendor of old men is their gray hair.

³⁰Blows that wound cleanse away evil; strokes make clean the innermost parts.

¹After this David inquired of the LORD, “Shall I go up into any of the cities of Judah?” And the LORD said to him, “Go up.” David said, “To which shall I go up?” And he said, “To Hebron.”

²So David went up there, and his two wives also, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel.

³And David brought up his men who were with him, everyone with his household, and they lived in the towns of Hebron.

⁴And the men of Judah came, and there they anointed David king over the house of Judah. When they told David, “It was the men of Jabesh-gilead who buried Saul,”

⁵David sent messengers to the men of Jabesh-gilead and said to them, “May you be blessed by the LORD, because you showed this loyalty to Saul your lord and buried him.

⁶Now may the LORD show steadfast love and faithfulness to you. And I will do good to you because you have done this thing.

⁷Now therefore let your hands be strong, and be valiant, for Saul your lord is dead, and the house of Judah has anointed me king over them.”

⁸But Abner the son of Ner, commander of Saul's army, took Ish-bosheth the son of Saul and brought him over to Mahanaim,

⁹and he made him king over Gilead and the Ashurites and Jezreel and Ephraim and Benjamin and all Israel.

¹⁰Ish-bosheth, Saul's son, was forty years old when he began to reign over Israel, and he reigned two years. But the house of Judah followed David.

¹¹And the time that David was king in Hebron over the house of Judah was seven years and six months.

¹²Abner the son of Ner, and the servants of Ish-bosheth the son of Saul, went out from Mahanaim to Gibeon.

¹³And Joab the son of Zeruiah and the servants of David went out and met them at the pool of Gibeon. And they sat down, the one on the one side of the pool, and the other on the other side of the pool.

¹⁴And Abner said to Joab, “Let the young men arise and compete before us.” And Joab said, “Let them arise.”

¹⁵Then they arose and passed over by number, twelve for Benjamin and Ish-bosheth the son of Saul, and twelve of the servants of David.

¹⁶And each caught his opponent by the head and thrust his sword in his opponent's side, so they fell down together. Therefore that place was called Helkath-hazzurim, which is at Gibeon.

¹⁷And the battle was very fierce that day. And Abner and the men of Israel were beaten before the servants of David.

¹⁸And the three sons of Zeruiah were there, Joab, Abishai, and Asahel. Now Asahel was as swift of foot as a wild gazelle.

¹⁹And Asahel pursued Abner, and as he went, he turned neither to the right hand nor to the left from following Abner.

²⁰Then Abner looked behind him and said, “Is it you, Asahel?” And he answered, “It is I.”

²¹Abner said to him, “Turn aside to your right hand or to your left, and seize one of the young men and take his spoil.” But Asahel would not turn aside from following him.

²²And Abner said again to Asahel, “Turn aside from following me. Why should I strike you to the ground? How then could I lift up my face to your brother Joab?”

²³But he refused to turn aside. Therefore Abner struck him in the stomach with the butt of his spear, so that the spear came out at his back. And he fell there and died where he was. And all who came to the place where Asahel had fallen and died, stood still.

²⁴But Joab and Abishai pursued Abner. And as the sun was going down they came to the hill of Ammah, which lies before Giah on the way to the wilderness of Gibeon.

²⁵And the people of Benjamin gathered themselves together behind Abner and became one group and took their stand on the top of a hill.

²⁶Then Abner called to Joab, “Shall the sword devour forever? Do you not know that the end will be bitter? How long will it be before you tell your people to turn from the pursuit of their brothers?”

²⁷And Joab said, “As God lives, if you had not spoken, surely the men would not have given up the pursuit of their brothers until the morning.”

²⁸So Joab blew the trumpet, and all the men stopped and pursued Israel no more, nor did they fight anymore.

²⁹And Abner and his men went all that night through the Arabah. They crossed the Jordan, and marching the whole morning, they came to Mahanaim.

³⁰Joab returned from the pursuit of Abner. And when he had gathered all the people together, there were missing from David's servants nineteen men besides Asahel.

³¹But the servants of David had struck down of Benjamin 360 of Abner's men.

³²And they took up Asahel and buried him in the tomb of his father, which was at Bethlehem. And Joab and his men marched all night, and the day broke upon them at Hebron.

¹The word of the LORD came to me:

²“You shall not take a wife, nor shall you have sons or daughters in this place.

³For thus says the LORD concerning the sons and daughters who are born in this place, and concerning the mothers who bore them and the fathers who fathered them in this land:

⁴They shall die of deadly diseases. They shall not be lamented, nor shall they be buried. They shall be as dung on the surface of the ground. They shall perish by the sword and by famine, and their dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth.

⁵“For thus says the LORD: Do not enter the house of mourning, or go to lament or grieve for them, for I have taken away my peace from this people, my steadfast love and mercy, declares the LORD.

⁶Both great and small shall die in this land. They shall not be buried, and no one shall lament for them or cut himself or make himself bald for them.

⁷No one shall break bread for the mourner, to comfort him for the dead, nor shall anyone give him the cup of consolation to drink for his father or his mother.

⁸You shall not go into the house of feasting to sit with them, to eat and drink.

⁹For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will silence in this place, before your eyes and in your days, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride.

¹⁰“And when you tell this people all these words, and they say to you, ‘Why has the LORD pronounced all this great evil against us? What is our iniquity? What is the sin that we have committed against the LORD our God?’

¹¹then you shall say to them: ‘Because your fathers have forsaken me, declares the LORD, and have gone after other gods and have served and worshiped them, and have forsaken me and have not kept my law,

¹²and because you have done worse than your fathers, for behold, every one of you follows his stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to me.

¹³Therefore I will hurl you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.’

¹⁴“Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when it shall no longer be said, ‘As the LORD lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’

¹⁵but ‘As the LORD lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.’ For I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers.

¹⁶“Behold, I am sending for many fishers, declares the LORD, and they shall catch them. And afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks.

¹⁷For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from me, nor is their iniquity concealed from my eyes.

¹⁸But first I will doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.”

¹⁹O LORD, my strength and my stronghold, my refuge in the day of trouble, to you shall the nations come from the ends of the earth and say: “Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, worthless things in which there is no profit.

²⁰Can man make for himself gods? Such are not gods!”

²¹“Therefore, behold, I will make them know, this once I will make them know my power and my might, and they shall know that my name is the LORD.”

¹So Agrippa said to Paul, “You have permission to speak for yourself.” Then Paul stretched out his hand and made his defense:

²“I consider myself fortunate that it is before you, King Agrippa, I am going to make my defense today against all the accusations of the Jews,

³especially because you are familiar with all the customs and controversies of the Jews. Therefore I beg you to listen to me patiently.

⁴“My manner of life from my youth, spent from the beginning among my own nation and in Jerusalem, is known by all the Jews.

⁵They have known for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that according to the strictest party of our religion I have lived as a Pharisee.

⁶And now I stand here on trial because of my hope in the promise made by God to our fathers,

⁷to which our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship night and day. And for this hope I am accused by Jews, O king!

⁸Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead?

⁹“I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth.

¹⁰And I did so in Jerusalem. I not only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the chief priests, but when they were put to death I cast my vote against them.

¹¹And I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme, and in raging fury against them I persecuted them even to foreign cities.

¹²“In this connection I journeyed to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests.

¹³At midday, O king, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, that shone around me and those who journeyed with me.

¹⁴And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’

¹⁵And I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.

¹⁶But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you,

¹⁷ delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles — to whom I am sending you

¹⁸ to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

¹⁹“Therefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision,

²⁰but declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance.

²¹For this reason the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me.

²²To this day I have had the help that comes from God, and so I stand here testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass:

²³that the Christ must suffer and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles.”

²⁴And as he was saying these things in his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, “Paul, you are out of your mind; your great learning is driving you out of your mind.”

²⁵But Paul said, “I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I am speaking true and rational words.

²⁶For the king knows about these things, and to him I speak boldly. For I am persuaded that none of these things has escaped his notice, for this has not been done in a corner.

²⁷King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe.”

²⁸And Agrippa said to Paul, “In a short time would you persuade me to be a Christian?”

²⁹And Paul said, “Whether short or long, I would to God that not only you but also all who hear me this day might become such as I am — except for these chains.”

³⁰Then the king rose, and the governor and Bernice and those who were sitting with them.

³¹And when they had withdrawn, they said to one another, “This man is doing nothing to deserve death or imprisonment.”

³²And Agrippa said to Festus, “This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar.”