Acts 24:10-21 - Paul's Defense Before Felix

¹⁰ Then at a nod from the governor Paul made his reply. "As I know you have administered justice in this nation for a number of years," he said, "I feel encouraged to make my defence, ¹¹ because it is not more than twelve days, as you can easily ascertain, since I went up to worship at Jerusalem. ¹² They never found me arguing with anyone in the temple or causing a riot either in the synagogues or in the city; ¹³ they cannot furnish you with any proof of their present charges against me. ¹⁴ I certainly admit to you that I worship our fathers' God according to the methods of what they call a 'sect'; but I believe all that is written in the Law and in the prophets, ¹⁵ and I cherish the same hope in God as they accept, namely that there is to be a resurrection of the just and the unjust. ¹⁶ Hence I too endeavour to have a clear conscience before God and men all the time. ¹⁷ After a lapse of several years I came up with alms and offerings for my nation, ¹⁸ and it was in presenting these that I was found within the temple. I was ceremonially pure, I was not mixed up in any mob or riot; no, the trouble was caused by some Jews from Asia, ¹⁹ who ought to have been here before you with any charge they may have against me. ²⁰ Failing them, let these men yonder tell what fault they found with my appearance before the Sanhedrin! ??21 unless it was with the single sentence I uttered, when I stood and said, 'It is for the resurrection of the dead that I am on my trial to-day before you.'"