Therefore, you people [must] repent [i.e., change your hearts and lives] and turn [back] again [to God] so that your sins will be blotted out and so that you may enjoy times of [spiritual] refreshment from the presence of the Lord [i.e., through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit].

And so they brought them in [to their headquarters] to appear before the Council [for questioning]. The head priest spoke to them, [saying],

We apostles are witnesses of these things and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to every person who obeys Him."

And so Saul began proclaiming that Jesus was the Son of God in the synagogues [of the Damascus area].

[However], his disciples lowered him in a basket over the [city] wall at night [and so he escaped].

The head priest can also verify all this, and so can the body of [Jewish] elders. They furnished me with letters to our fellow-Jews in Damascus, to which I also traveled to bring people back here to Jerusalem, bound in chains to be punished.

The rest [he reasoned] could reach shore by floating on planks or other debris from the ship. And so it happened that all of them escaped safely to land.