Then the colonel came up and seized Paul and ordered him to be bound with two chains; he then asked who he was and what he had done. But they kept shouting in the crowd, some one thing, some another. As he could not with certainty find out about it, because of the tumult, he ordered him to be brought into the barracks. When Paul got to the steps, he was actually borne by the soldiers because of the violence of the mob, read more.
for a tremendous crowd of people kept following them and shouting, "Away with him!" As he was about to be taken into the barracks, Paul said to the colonel, "May I say something to you?" The colonel asked, "Do you know Greek? Are you not the Egyptian who sometime ago raised a mob of four thousand cut-throats and led them out into the desert?" Paul answered, "I am a Jew from Tarsus, in Cilicia, a citizen of no insignificant city. Please let me speak to the people." He granted the request, and Paul, as he was standing on the steps, made a gesture to the people, and after everybody had quieted down, he spoke to them in Hebrew as follows:

"Brothers and fathers, listen now to what I have to say in my defense." When they heard him speaking to them in Hebrew, they became even more quiet, and he continued: "I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up here in this city, and carefully educated under the teaching of Gamaliel in the law of our forefathers. I was zealous for God, as all of you are today. read more.
I persecuted this Way even to the death, and kept on binding both men and women and putting them in jail, as the high priest and the whole council will bear me witness. Indeed, I had received letters from them to the brothers in Damascus, and I was on the way there to bind those who were there and bring them back to Jerusalem to be punished. But on my way, just before I reached Damascus, suddenly about noon a blaze of light from heaven flashed around me, and I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, 'Saul! Saul! Why are you persecuting me?' I answered, 'Who are you, Sir?' He said to me, 'I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting.' The men who were with me saw the light, but they did not hear the voice of Him who was speaking to me. Then I asked, 'What am I to do, Lord?' And the Lord answered, 'Get up and go into Damascus, and there it will be told you what you are destined to do.' Since I could not see because of the dazzling sheen of that light, I was led by the hand by my companions and in this way I reached Damascus. There a man named Ananias, a man devout in strict accordance with the law, of good reputation among all the Jews who lived there, came to see me, and standing by my side said to me, 'Saul, my brother, recover your sight!' Then instantly I did recover it and looked at him, and he said, 'The God of our forefathers has appointed you to learn His will and to see the Righteous One and to hear Him speak, because you are to be His witness to all men of what you have seen and heard. And now, why are you waiting? Get up and be baptized and wash your sins away by calling on His name.' After I had come back to Jerusalem, one day while I was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance, and saw Him saying to me, 'Make haste and at once get out of Jerusalem, because they will not accept your testimony about me.' So I said, 'Lord, they know for themselves that from one synagogue to another I used to imprison and flog those who believed in you, and when the blood of your martyr Stephen was being shed, I stood by and approved it, and held the clothes of those who killed him.' Then He said to me, 'Go, because I am to send you out and far away among the heathen.'"