12. “A certain Ananias, a devout observer of the law, and highly spoken of by all the Jews who lived there,
13. came to me and stood there and said, ‘Saul, my brother, regain your sight.’ And at that very moment I regained my sight and saw him.
14. Then he said, ‘The God of our ancestors designated you to know his will, to see the Righteous One, and to hear the sound of his voice;
15. for you will be his witness before all to what you have seen and heard.
16. Now, why delay? Get up and have yourself baptized and your sins washed away, calling upon his name.’
17. “After I had returned to Jerusalem and while I was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance
18. and saw the Lord saying to me, ‘Hurry, leave Jerusalem at once, because they will not accept your testimony about me.’
19. But I replied, ‘Lord, they themselves know that from synagogue to synagogue I used to imprison and beat those who believed in you.
20. And when the blood of your witness Stephen was being shed, I myself stood by giving my approval and keeping guard over the cloaks of his murderers.’
21. Then he said to me, ‘Go, I shall send you far away to the Gentiles.’”
22. They listened to him until he said this, but then they raised their voices and shouted, “Take such a one as this away from the earth. It is not right that he should live.”
23. And as they were yelling and throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust into the air,
24. the cohort commander ordered him to be brought into the compound and gave instruction that he be interrogated under the lash to determine the reason why they were making such an outcry against him.
25. But when they had stretched him out for the whips, Paul said to the centurion on duty, “Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman citizen and has not been tried?”
26. When the centurion heard this, he went to the cohort commander and reported it, saying, “What are you going to do? This man is a Roman citizen.”
27. Then the commander came and said to him, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?” “Yes,” he answered.
28. The commander replied, “I acquired this citizenship for a large sum of money.” Paul said, “But I was born one.”
29. At once those who were going to interrogate him backed away from him, and the commander became alarmed when he realized that he was a Roman citizen and that he had had him bound.