Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God ; believe also in me.

²My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?

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

⁴You know the way to the place where I am going.”

⁵Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

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

⁷If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

⁸Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

⁹Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

¹⁰Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.

¹¹Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.

¹²Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.

¹³And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

¹⁴You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

¹⁵“If you love me, keep my commands.

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

¹⁷the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

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

¹⁹Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.

²⁰On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.

²¹Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

²²Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”

²³Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.

²⁴Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

²⁵“All this I have spoken while still with you.

²⁶But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

²⁷Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

²⁸“You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.

²⁹I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe.

³⁰I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me,

³¹but he comes so that the world may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me. “Come now; let us leave.

¹When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.”

²Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.”

³So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron.

⁴He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

⁵When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the LORD.”

⁶So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.

⁷Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt.

⁸They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’

⁹“I have seen these people,” the LORD said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people.

¹⁰Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”

¹¹But Moses sought the favor of the LORD his God. “LORD,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?

¹²Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people.

¹³Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’ ”

¹⁴Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.

¹⁵Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides, front and back.

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

¹⁷When Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, “There is the sound of war in the camp.”

¹⁸Moses replied: “It is not the sound of victory, it is not the sound of defeat; it is the sound of singing that I hear.”

¹⁹When Moses approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, his anger burned and he threw the tablets out of his hands, breaking them to pieces at the foot of the mountain.

²⁰And he took the calf the people had made and burned it in the fire; then he ground it to powder, scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it.

²¹He said to Aaron, “What did these people do to you, that you led them into such great sin?”

²²“Do not be angry, my lord,” Aaron answered. “You know how prone these people are to evil.

²³They said to me, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.’

²⁴So I told them, ‘Whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.’ Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!”

²⁵Moses saw that the people were running wild and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock to their enemies.

²⁶So he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, “Whoever is for the LORD, come to me.” And all the Levites rallied to him.

²⁷Then he said to them, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.’ ”

²⁸The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died.

²⁹Then Moses said, “You have been set apart to the LORD today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day.”

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

³¹So Moses went back to the LORD and said, “Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made themselves gods of gold.

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

³³The LORD replied to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me I will blot out of my book.

³⁴Now go, lead the people to the place I spoke of, and my angel will go before you. However, when the time comes for me to punish, I will punish them for their sin.”

³⁵And the LORD struck the people with a plague because of what they did with the calf Aaron had made.

¹What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, discovered in this matter?

²If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God.

³What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

⁴Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation.

⁵However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.

⁶David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the one to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:

⁷“Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.

⁸Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord will never count against them.”

⁹Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness.

¹⁰Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before!

¹¹And he received circumcision as a sign, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them.

¹²And he is then also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also follow in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

¹³It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith.

¹⁴For if those who depend on the law are heirs, faith means nothing and the promise is worthless,

¹⁵because the law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.

¹⁶Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all.

¹⁷As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.

¹⁸Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

¹⁹Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead.

²⁰Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God,

²¹being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.

²²This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.”

²³The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone,

²⁴but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.

²⁵He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

¹But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.

²People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,

³without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good,

⁴treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—

⁵having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.

⁶They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires,

⁷always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.

⁸Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these teachers oppose the truth. They are men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected.

⁹But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.

¹⁰You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance,

¹¹persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.

¹²In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,

¹³while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

¹⁴But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it,

¹⁵and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

¹⁶All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,

¹⁷so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

¹Then Zophar the Naamathite replied:

²“My troubled thoughts prompt me to answer because I am greatly disturbed.

³I hear a rebuke that dishonors me, and my understanding inspires me to reply.

⁴“Surely you know how it has been from of old, ever since mankind was placed on the earth,

⁵that the mirth of the wicked is brief, the joy of the godless lasts but a moment.

⁶Though the pride of the godless person reaches to the heavens and his head touches the clouds,

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

⁸Like a dream he flies away, no more to be found, banished like a vision of the night.

⁹The eye that saw him will not see him again; his place will look on him no more.

¹⁰His children must make amends to the poor; his own hands must give back his wealth.

¹¹The youthful vigor that fills his bones will lie with him in the dust.

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

¹³though he cannot bear to let it go and lets it linger in his mouth,

¹⁴yet his food will turn sour in his stomach; it will become the venom of serpents within him.

¹⁵He will spit out the riches he swallowed; God will make his stomach vomit them up.

¹⁶He will suck the poison of serpents; the fangs of an adder will kill him.

¹⁷He will not enjoy the streams, the rivers flowing with honey and cream.

¹⁸What he toiled for he must give back uneaten; he will not enjoy the profit from his trading.

¹⁹For he has oppressed the poor and left them destitute; he has seized houses he did not build.

²⁰“Surely he will have no respite from his craving; he cannot save himself by his treasure.

²¹Nothing is left for him to devour; his prosperity will not endure.

²²In the midst of his plenty, distress will overtake him; the full force of misery will come upon him.

²³When he has filled his belly, God will vent his burning anger against him and rain down his blows on him.

²⁴Though he flees from an iron weapon, a bronze-tipped arrow pierces him.

²⁵He pulls it out of his back, the gleaming point out of his liver. Terrors will come over him;

²⁶total darkness lies in wait for his treasures. A fire unfanned will consume him and devour what is left in his tent.

²⁷The heavens will expose his guilt; the earth will rise up against him.

²⁸A flood will carry off his house, rushing waters on the day of God’s wrath.

²⁹Such is the fate God allots the wicked, the heritage appointed for them by God.”

¹A psalm of Asaph. God presides in the great assembly; he renders judgment among the “gods”:

²“How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked?

³Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed.

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

⁵“The ‘gods’ know nothing, they understand nothing. They walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

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

⁷But you will die like mere mortals; you will fall like every other ruler.”

⁸Rise up, O God, judge the earth, for all the nations are your inheritance.

¹Wine is a mocker and beer a brawler; whoever is led astray by them is not wise.

²A king’s wrath strikes terror like the roar of a lion; those who anger him forfeit their lives.

³It is to one’s honor to avoid strife, but every fool is quick to quarrel.

⁴Sluggards do not plow in season; so at harvest time they look but find nothing.

⁵The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out.

⁶Many claim to have unfailing love, but a faithful person who can find?

⁷The righteous lead blameless lives; blessed are their children after them.

⁸When a king sits on his throne to judge, he winnows out all evil with his eyes.

⁹Who can say, “I have kept my heart pure; I am clean and without sin”?

¹⁰Differing weights and differing measures— the LORD detests them both.

¹¹Even small children are known by their actions, so is their conduct really pure and upright?

¹²Ears that hear and eyes that see— the LORD has made them both.

¹³Do not love sleep or you will grow poor; stay awake and you will have food to spare.

¹⁴“It’s no good, it’s no good!” says the buyer— then goes off and boasts about the purchase.

¹⁵Gold there is, and rubies in abundance, but lips that speak knowledge are a rare jewel.

¹⁶Take the garment of one who puts up security for a stranger; hold it in pledge if it is done for an outsider.

¹⁷Food gained by fraud tastes sweet, but one ends up with a mouth full of gravel.

¹⁸Plans are established by seeking advice; so if you wage war, obtain guidance.

¹⁹A gossip betrays a confidence; so avoid anyone who talks too much.

²⁰If someone curses their father or mother, their lamp will be snuffed out in pitch darkness.

²¹An inheritance claimed too soon will not be blessed at the end.

²²Do not say, “I’ll pay you back for this wrong!” Wait for the LORD, and he will avenge you.

²³The LORD detests differing weights, and dishonest scales do not please him.

²⁴A person’s steps are directed by the LORD. How then can anyone understand their own way?

²⁵It is a trap to dedicate something rashly and only later to consider one’s vows.

²⁶A wise king winnows out the wicked; he drives the threshing wheel over them.

²⁷The human spirit is the lamp of the LORD that sheds light on one’s inmost being.

²⁸Love and faithfulness keep a king safe; through love his throne is made secure.

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

³⁰Blows and wounds scrub away evil, and beatings purge the inmost being.

¹In the course of time, David inquired of the LORD. “Shall I go up to one of the towns of Judah?” he asked. The LORD said, “Go up.” David asked, “Where shall I go?” “To Hebron,” the LORD answered.

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

³David also took the men who were with him, each with his family, and they settled in Hebron and its towns.

⁴Then the men of Judah came to Hebron, and there they anointed David king over the tribe of Judah. When David was told that it was the men from Jabesh Gilead who had buried Saul,

⁵he sent messengers to them to say to them, “The LORD bless you for showing this kindness to Saul your master by burying him.

⁶May the LORD now show you kindness and faithfulness, and I too will show you the same favor because you have done this.

⁷Now then, be strong and brave, for Saul your master is dead, and the people of Judah have anointed me king over them.”

⁸Meanwhile, Abner son of Ner, the commander of Saul’s army, had taken Ish-Bosheth son of Saul and brought him over to Mahanaim.

⁹He made him king over Gilead, Ashuri and Jezreel, and also over Ephraim, Benjamin and all Israel.

¹⁰Ish-Bosheth son of Saul was forty years old when he became king over Israel, and he reigned two years. The tribe of Judah, however, remained loyal to David.

¹¹The length of time David was king in Hebron over Judah was seven years and six months.

¹²Abner son of Ner, together with the men of Ish-Bosheth son of Saul, left Mahanaim and went to Gibeon.

¹³Joab son of Zeruiah and David’s men went out and met them at the pool of Gibeon. One group sat down on one side of the pool and one group on the other side.

¹⁴Then Abner said to Joab, “Let’s have some of the young men get up and fight hand to hand in front of us.” “All right, let them do it,” Joab said.

¹⁵So they stood up and were counted off—twelve men for Benjamin and Ish-Bosheth son of Saul, and twelve for David.

¹⁶Then each man grabbed his opponent by the head and thrust his dagger into his opponent’s side, and they fell down together. So that place in Gibeon was called Helkath Hazzurim.

¹⁷The battle that day was very fierce, and Abner and the Israelites were defeated by David’s men.

¹⁸The three sons of Zeruiah were there: Joab, Abishai and Asahel. Now Asahel was as fleet-footed as a wild gazelle.

¹⁹He chased Abner, turning neither to the right nor to the left as he pursued him.

²⁰Abner looked behind him and asked, “Is that you, Asahel?” “It is,” he answered.

²¹Then Abner said to him, “Turn aside to the right or to the left; take on one of the young men and strip him of his weapons.” But Asahel would not stop chasing him.

²²Again Abner warned Asahel, “Stop chasing me! Why should I strike you down? How could I look your brother Joab in the face?”

²³But Asahel refused to give up the pursuit; so Abner thrust the butt of his spear into Asahel’s stomach, and the spear came out through his back. He fell there and died on the spot. And every man stopped when he came to the place where Asahel had fallen and died.

²⁴But Joab and Abishai pursued Abner, and as the sun was setting, they came to the hill of Ammah, near Giah on the way to the wasteland of Gibeon.

²⁵Then the men of Benjamin rallied behind Abner. They formed themselves into a group and took their stand on top of a hill.

²⁶Abner called out to Joab, “Must the sword devour forever? Don’t you realize that this will end in bitterness? How long before you order your men to stop pursuing their fellow Israelites?”

²⁷Joab answered, “As surely as God lives, if you had not spoken, the men would have continued pursuing them until morning.”

²⁸So Joab blew the trumpet, and all the troops came to a halt; they no longer pursued Israel, nor did they fight anymore.

²⁹All that night Abner and his men marched through the Arabah. They crossed the Jordan, continued through the morning hours and came to Mahanaim.

³⁰Then Joab stopped pursuing Abner and assembled the whole army. Besides Asahel, nineteen of David’s men were found missing.

³¹But David’s men had killed three hundred and sixty Benjamites who were with Abner.

³²They took Asahel and buried him in his father’s tomb at Bethlehem. Then Joab and his men marched all night and arrived at Hebron by daybreak.

¹Then the word of the LORD came to me:

²“You must not marry and have sons or daughters in this place.”

³For this is what the LORD says about the sons and daughters born in this land and about the women who are their mothers and the men who are their fathers:

⁴“They will die of deadly diseases. They will not be mourned or buried but will be like dung lying on the ground. They will perish by sword and famine, and their dead bodies will become food for the birds and the wild animals.”

⁵For this is what the LORD says: “Do not enter a house where there is a funeral meal; do not go to mourn or show sympathy, because I have withdrawn my blessing, my love and my pity from this people,” declares the LORD.

⁶“Both high and low will die in this land. They will not be buried or mourned, and no one will cut themselves or shave their head for the dead.

⁷No one will offer food to comfort those who mourn for the dead—not even for a father or a mother—nor will anyone give them a drink to console them.

⁸“And do not enter a house where there is feasting and sit down to eat and drink.

⁹For this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Before your eyes and in your days I will bring an end to the sounds of joy and gladness and to the voices of bride and bridegroom in this place.

¹⁰“When you tell these people all this and they ask you, ‘Why has the LORD decreed such a great disaster against us? What wrong have we done? What sin have we committed against the LORD our God?’

¹¹then say to them, ‘It is because your ancestors forsook me,’ declares the LORD, ‘and followed other gods and served and worshiped them. They forsook me and did not keep my law.

¹²But you have behaved more wickedly than your ancestors. See how all of you are following the stubbornness of your evil hearts instead of obeying me.

¹³So I will throw you out of this land into a land neither you nor your ancestors have known, and there you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.’

¹⁴“However, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when it will no longer be said, ‘As surely as the LORD lives, who brought the Israelites up out of Egypt,’

¹⁵but it will be said, ‘As surely as the LORD lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them.’ For I will restore them to the land I gave their ancestors.

¹⁶“But now I will send for many fishermen,” declares the LORD, “and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill and from the crevices of the rocks.

¹⁷My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from me, nor is their sin concealed from my eyes.

¹⁸I will repay them double for their wickedness and their sin, because they have defiled my land with the lifeless forms of their vile images and have filled my inheritance with their detestable idols.”

¹⁹LORD, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in time of distress, to you the nations will come from the ends of the earth and say, “Our ancestors possessed nothing but false gods, worthless idols that did them no good.

²⁰Do people make their own gods? Yes, but they are not gods!”

²¹“Therefore I will teach them— this time I will teach them my power and might. Then they will know that my name is the LORD.

¹Then Agrippa said to Paul, “You have permission to speak for yourself.” So Paul motioned with his hand and began his defense:

²“King Agrippa, I consider myself fortunate to stand before you today as I make my defense against all the accusations of the Jews,

³and especially so because you are well acquainted with all the Jewish customs and controversies. Therefore, I beg you to listen to me patiently.

⁴“The Jewish people all know the way I have lived ever since I was a child, from the beginning of my life in my own country, and also in Jerusalem.

⁵They have known me for a long time and can testify, if they are willing, that I conformed to the strictest sect of our religion, living as a Pharisee.

⁶And now it is because of my hope in what God has promised our ancestors that I am on trial today.

⁷This is the promise our twelve tribes are hoping to see fulfilled as they earnestly serve God day and night. King Agrippa, it is because of this hope that these Jews are accusing me.

⁸Why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?

⁹“I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth.

¹⁰And that is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the Lord’s people in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them.

¹¹Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme. I was so obsessed with persecuting them that I even hunted them down in foreign cities.

¹²“On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests.

¹³About noon, King Agrippa, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions.

¹⁴We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’

¹⁵“Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ “ ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied.

¹⁶‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me.

¹⁷I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them

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

¹⁹“So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven.

²⁰First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and then to the Gentiles, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and demonstrate their repentance by their deeds.

²¹That is why some Jews seized me in the temple courts and tried to kill me.

²²But God has helped me to this very day; so I stand here and testify to small and great alike. I am saying nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses said would happen—

²³that the Messiah would suffer and, as the first to rise from the dead, would bring the message of light to his own people and to the Gentiles.”

²⁴At this point Festus interrupted Paul’s defense. “You are out of your mind, Paul!” he shouted. “Your great learning is driving you insane.”

²⁵“I am not insane, most excellent Festus,” Paul replied. “What I am saying is true and reasonable.

²⁶The king is familiar with these things, and I can speak freely to him. I am convinced that none of this has escaped his notice, because it was not done in a corner.

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

²⁸Then Agrippa said to Paul, “Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?”

²⁹Paul replied, “Short time or long—I pray to God that not only you but all who are listening to me today may become what I am, except for these chains.”

³⁰The king rose, and with him the governor and Bernice and those sitting with them.

³¹After they left the room, they began saying to one another, “This man is not doing anything that deserves death or imprisonment.”

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