Acts 22:17-29 - Paul's Call To Preach To The Gentiles

¹⁷ After I had returned to Jerusalem, one day when I was praying in the Temple, I fell into a trance, ¹⁸ and saw him saying to me, 'Make haste and leave Jerusalem at once, for they will not accept your evidence about me.'

¹⁹ And I said, 'Lord, they know that I used to go through one synagogue after another, and to imprison and flog those who believed in you, ²⁰ and when the blood of your witness Stephen was being shed, I stood by and approved it, and took charge of the clothes of the men who killed him.'

²¹ But he said to me, 'Go! I will send you far away to the heathen.' "

²² They had listened to him until he said that, but then they shouted, "Kill him and get him out of the world! A creature like that ought not to be allowed to live!"

²³ As they were shouting and throwing their clothes about and flinging dust into the air, ²⁴ the colonel ordered Paul brought into the barracks, and gave directions that he should be examined under the lash, so that he might find out why they made such an outcry against him. ²⁵ But when they had strapped him up, Paul said to the officer who was standing near, "Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen, and without giving him a trial?"

²⁶ Upon hearing this, the officer went to the colonel and reported it. "What do you propose to do?" he said. "This man is a Roman citizen."

²⁷ Then the colonel came to Paul and said, "Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?" "Yes," he said.

²⁸ "I had to pay a large sum for my citizenship," said the colonel. "But I am a citizen by birth," said Paul.

²⁹ Then the men who had been going to examine him immediately left him, and the colonel himself was alarmed to find that Paul was a Roman citizen and that he had had him bound.