Mark 5:19

¹⁶Come and hear, all you who fear God. I will declare what he has done for my soul.

²⁹“Come, see a man who told me everything that I have done. Can this be the Christ?”

²⁵Then King Darius wrote to all the peoples, nations, and languages who dwell in all the earth: “Peace be multiplied to you.

²⁶“I make a decree that in all the dominion of my kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel. “For he is the living God, and steadfast forever. His kingdom is that which will not be destroyed. His dominion will be even to the end. ²⁷He delivers and rescues. He works signs and wonders in heaven and in earth, who has delivered Daniel from the power of the lions.”

¹Nebuchadnezzar the king, to all the peoples, nations, and languages, who dwell in all the earth: Peace be multiplied to you.

²It has seemed good to me to show the signs and wonders that the Most High God has worked toward me. ³How great are his signs! How mighty are his wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. His dominion is from generation to generation.

⁹The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick, and had recovered of his sickness: ¹⁰I said, “In the middle of my life I go into the gates of Sheol.^[+] I am deprived of the residue of my years.” ¹¹I said, “I won’t see the LORD,^[+] the LORD^[+] in the land of the living. I will see man no more with the inhabitants of the world. ¹²My dwelling is removed, and is carried away from me like a shepherd’s tent. I have rolled up my life like a weaver. He will cut me off from the loom. From day even to night you will make an end of me. ¹³I waited patiently until morning. He breaks all my bones like a lion. From day even to night you will make an end of me. ¹⁴I chattered like a swallow or a crane. I moaned like a dove. My eyes weaken looking upward. Lord, I am oppressed. Be my security.” ¹⁵What will I say? He has both spoken to me, and himself has done it. I will walk carefully all my years because of the anguish of my soul. ¹⁶Lord, men live by these things; and my spirit finds life in all of them. You restore me, and cause me to live. ¹⁷Behold, for peace I had great anguish, but you have in love for my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption; for you have cast all my sins behind your back. ¹⁸For Sheol^[+] can’t praise you. Death can’t celebrate you. Those who go down into the pit can’t hope for your truth. ¹⁹The living, the living, he shall praise you, as I do today. The father shall make known your truth to the children. ²⁰The LORD will save me. Therefore we will sing my songs with stringed instruments all the days of our life in the LORD’s house.

⁴“Indeed, all the Jews know my way of life from my youth up, which was from the beginning among my own nation and at Jerusalem; ⁵having known me from the first, if they are willing to testify, that after the strictest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee. ⁶Now I stand here to be judged for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers, ⁷which our twelve tribes, earnestly serving night and day, hope to attain. Concerning this hope I am accused by the Jews, King Agrippa! ⁸Why is it judged incredible with you if God does raise the dead?

⁹“I myself most certainly thought that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. ¹⁰I also did this in Jerusalem. I both shut up many of the saints in prisons, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death I gave my vote against them. ¹¹Punishing them often in all the synagogues, I tried to make them blaspheme. Being exceedingly enraged against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities.

¹²“Whereupon as I traveled to Damascus with the authority and commission from the chief priests, ¹³at noon, O king, I saw on the way a light from the sky, brighter than the sun, shining around me and those who traveled with me. ¹⁴When we had all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’

¹⁵“I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ “He said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.

¹⁶But arise, and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose: to appoint you a servant and a witness both of the things which you have seen and of the things which I will reveal to you; ¹⁷delivering you from the people and from the Gentiles, to whom I send you, ¹⁸to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive remission of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

¹⁹“Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, ²⁰but declared first to them of Damascus, at Jerusalem, and throughout all the country of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, doing works worthy of repentance. ²¹For this reason the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me. ²²Having therefore obtained the help that is from God, I stand to this day testifying both to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would happen, ²³how the Christ must suffer, and how, by the resurrection of the dead, he would be first to proclaim light both to these people and to the Gentiles.”

²⁴As he thus made his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, “Paul, you are crazy! Your great learning is driving you insane!”

²⁵But he said, “I am not crazy, most excellent Festus, but boldly declare words of truth and reasonableness. ²⁶For the king knows of these things, to whom also I speak freely. For I am persuaded that none of these things is hidden from him, for this has not been done in a corner. ²⁷King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe.”

²⁸Agrippa said to Paul, “With a little persuasion are you trying to make me a Christian?”

²⁹Paul said, “I pray to God, that whether with little or with much, not only you, but also all that hear me today, might become such as I am, except for these bonds.”

¹“Brothers and fathers, listen to the defense which I now make to you.”

²When they heard that he spoke to them in the Hebrew language, they were even more quiet. He said,

³“I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, instructed according to the strict tradition of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God, even as you all are today. ⁴I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women, ⁵as also the high priest and all the council of the elders testify, from whom also I received letters to the brothers, and traveled to Damascus to bring them also who were there to Jerusalem in bonds to be punished.

⁶“As I made my journey and came close to Damascus, about noon suddenly a great light shone around me from the sky. ⁷I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ ⁸I answered, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ He said to me, ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you persecute.’

⁹“Those who were with me indeed saw the light and were afraid, but they didn’t understand the voice of him who spoke to me. ¹⁰I said, ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ The Lord said to me, ‘Arise, and go into Damascus. There you will be told about all things which are appointed for you to do.’ ¹¹When I couldn’t see for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of those who were with me, I came into Damascus.

¹²“One Ananias, a devout man according to the law, well reported of by all the Jews who lived in Damascus, ¹³came to me, and standing by me said to me, ‘Brother Saul, receive your sight!’ In that very hour I looked up at him. ¹⁴He said, ‘The God of our fathers has appointed you to know his will, and to see the Righteous One, and to hear a voice from his mouth. ¹⁵For you will be a witness for him to all men of what you have seen and heard. ¹⁶Now why do you wait? Arise, be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord.’

¹⁷“When I had returned to Jerusalem and while I prayed in the temple, I fell into a trance ¹⁸and saw him saying to me, ‘Hurry and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not receive testimony concerning me from you.’ ¹⁹I said, ‘Lord, they themselves know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue those who believed in you. ²⁰When the blood of Stephen, your witness, was shed, I also was standing by, consenting to his death, and guarding the cloaks of those who killed him.’

²¹“He said to me, ‘Depart, for I will send you out far from here to the Gentiles.’ ”

³⁷Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven; for all his works are truth, and his ways justice; and those who walk in pride he is able to abase.

¹Then Jonah prayed to the LORD, his God, out of the fish’s belly. ²He said, “I called because of my affliction to the LORD. He answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol^[+] I cried. You heard my voice. ³For you threw me into the depths, in the heart of the seas. The flood was all around me. All your waves and your billows passed over me. ⁴I said, ‘I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.’ ⁵The waters surrounded me, even to the soul. The deep was around me. The weeds were wrapped around my head. ⁶I went down to the bottoms of the mountains. The earth barred me in forever; yet you have brought my life up from the pit, LORD my God. ⁷“When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the LORD. My prayer came in to you, into your holy temple. ⁸Those who regard vain idols forsake their own mercy. ⁹But I will sacrifice to you with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that which I have vowed. Salvation belongs to the LORD.”

¹⁰Then the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited out Jonah on the dry land.