And Agrippa said to Paul, You are permitted to speak for yourself. Then Paul stretched out his hand and made his defense:

Concerning all the things which I am accused of by the Jews, King Agrippa, I consider myself blessed that I am to make my  ¹defense before you today,

 ¹Especially since you are  ²familiar with all the customs and questions among the Jews; therefore I beg you to listen to me patiently.

The manner of my life from youth, which from the beginning was among my own nation and in Jerusalem, all the Jews know,

Since they have previously known about me from the first, if they were willing to testify, that according to the strictest sect of our  ¹religion I lived as a Pharisee.

And now I stand here being judged for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers,

To which our twelve tribes, earnestly serving night and day, hope to attain. Concerning this hope I am accused by the Jews, O king.

Why is it judged incredible among you if God raises the dead?

Well then, I thought to myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus the Nazarene,

Which also I did in Jerusalem; and I both shut up many of the saints in prison when I had received authority from the chief priests and cast a vote against them when they were being done away with.

And in all the synagogues I punished them often and tried to compel them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly enraged at them, I persecuted them even as far as  ¹foreign cities.

Engaged in these things, I journeyed to Damascus with authority and a commission from the chief priests.

At midday, on the way, I saw, O king, a light from heaven beyond the brightness of the sun, shining around me and those who journeyed with me.

And when we all fell to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew dialect, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting  ¹Me? It is hard for you to kick against the  ²goads.

And I said, Who are You,  ¹Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom you persecute.

But rise up and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a minister and a  ¹witness both of the things in which you have seen Me and of the things in which I will appear to you;

Delivering you from the people and from the Gentiles, to whom I send you,

To  ¹open their eyes, to turn them from  ²darkness to light and from the  ³authority of Satan  ⁴to God, that they may receive  ⁵forgiveness of sins and  ⁶an inheritance among those who have been  ⁷sanctified by faith in Me.

Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly  ¹vision,

But declared both to those in Damascus first and in Jerusalem and throughout all the country of Judea and to the Gentiles that they should repent and turn to God, doing works worthy of repentance.

Because of these things certain Jews seized me while I was in the temple and tried to slay me.

Having therefore obtained the  ¹help which is from God, I have stood unto this day, testifying both to small and great, saying nothing apart from the things which both the prophets and Moses have said would take place,

That the Christ would suffer and that He, being the first  ¹to rise from the dead, would announce  ²light both to the people and to the Gentiles.

And as he was saying these things in his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, You are  ¹insane, Paul. Much learning is driving you  ¹insane.

But Paul said, I am not insane, most excellent Festus, but I am uttering words of truth and soberness.

For the king  ¹knows about these things, to whom also I speak  ²freely, for I am persuaded that none of these things have escaped his notice; for this has not been done in a corner.

King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe.

And Agrippa replied to Paul, By so little are you trying to persuade me to become a Christian?

And Paul said, I would to God that both by little and by much, not only you, but also all those who hear me today might become even such as I am, except for these bonds.

And the king rose up, and the governor and Bernice and those sitting with them;

And when they had withdrawn, they spoke to one another, saying, This man is doing nothing worthy of death or of bonds.

And Agrippa said to Festus,  ¹This man could have been released, had he  ²not appealed to Caesar.

And Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said,

Should a wise man answer with the knowledge of wind,
And should he fill his belly with the east wind?

Should he argue with useless talk
And with words by which he cannot avail?

Indeed you do away with the fear of God
And restrain meditation before God.

For your iniquity instructs your mouth,
And you choose the tongue of the crafty.

Your own mouth condemns you, and not I;
And your own lips testify against you.

Are you the first man born?
Or were you brought forth before the hills?

Did you listen in on the secret council of God?
And do you limit wisdom to yourself?

What do you know that we do not know?
What do you understand that is not with us?

Both the grayheaded and the aged are among us,
Older than your father.

Are the consolations of God too small for you,
Or the word spoken gently to you?

Why does your heart take you away?
And why do your eyes flash,

That you turn your spirit against God
And let words go forth from your mouth?

What is mortal man, that he can be clean,
Or he who is born of a woman, that he can be righteous?

Indeed, He puts no trust in His holy ones;
Even the heavens are not clean in His eyes.

How much less one who is abominable and corrupt!
How much less a man who drinks wrong like water!

 ¹I will tell you; hear me;
And what I have seen, that will I recount,

What wise men have declared,
And have not hidden, from their fathers;

To whom alone the land was given,
And no stranger passed in their midst:

For all his days the wicked man travails in pain,
And numbered years are stored up for the ruthless man.

The sound of terrors is in his ears;
While he is at peace, the destroyer will come upon him.

He does not believe that he will return from the darkness,
And he is spied out for the sword.

He wanders for bread — where is it?
He knows that the day of darkness is ready at hand.

Distress and straits terrify him;
They prevail against him, like a king prepared for the attack;

Because he stretched out his hand against God,
And against the Almighty he acted mightily,

Running against Him with a stiff neck,
With the thick bosses of his shield;

Because he covered his face with his fatness
And gathered fat upon his loins;

And he dwelt in desolated cities,
In houses which should not have been inhabited,
Which were appointed to become heaps.

He will not be rich, and his wealth will not endure;
Nor will  ¹his produce bend down to the earth.

He will not go away from darkness;
The flame will dry up his shoots,
And by the breath of His mouth he will go away.

Let him not trust in vanity, deceiving himself;
For vanity will be his recompense.

It will be fully paid before his day,
And his branch will not be flourishing.

He will shake off his unripe grapes like a vine,
And he will cast off his blossom like an olive tree.

For the company of the profane will be barren,
And fire will devour the tents of bribery.

They conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity,
And their heart prepares deceit.

Then Job answered and said,

I have heard many such things;
Troubling comforters are you all.

Do words of wind have an end?
Or what has provoked you that you so respond?

I also could speak like you,
If your soul were in my soul's stead;
I could join my words together against you
And shake my head at you.

I could strengthen you with my mouth,
And the movement of my lips would mitigate your pain.

If I speak, my pain is not mitigated;
And if I forbear, how much departs from me?

But now He has worn me out;
You have desolated all my company.

And You have seized me; it is a testimony against me;
And my leanness rises up against me; it testifies to my face.

In His wrath He has torn me to pieces and been adverse toward me;
He has gnashed His teeth at me.
My Adversary sharpens His eyes at me.

With their mouth they gape at me;
They strike my cheek reproachfully;
They mass themselves together against me.

God has delivered me over to the unjust
And cast me down into the hands of the wicked.

I was at ease, and He broke me apart;
Indeed He took me by my neck and dashed me to pieces.
And He set me up as His target;

His archers surrounded me;
He split open my kidneys and did not desist;
He poured out my gall upon the earth.

He broke me open with breach upon breach;
He ran at me like a mighty man of war.

I have sewn sackcloth upon my skin
And have cast my horn into the dust.

My face is reddened with weeping,
And on my eyelids is the shadow of death;

Though there is no violence in my hands,
And my prayer is pure.

O earth, do not cover my blood;
And let there be no resting place for my crying out.

Even now, there in heaven is my Witness,
And He who vouches for me is in the heights.

My friends deride me;
My eye pours out tears to God,

That He would plead for a man in his case with God
And for a son of man in his case with his neighbor.

For when years few in number have come,
I will go the way from which I cannot return.

My spirit is broken;
My days are extinct;
The graveyard is ready for me.

Surely there are mockers with me,
And my eye lingers on their provocation.

Lay down now a pledge for me with Yourself;
Who is he who will  ¹strike hands with me?

For You have hidden their heart from insight;
Therefore You will not exalt them.

He who denounces his friends for a share of the profit taken,
Even the eyes of his children will fail.

But He has made me a byword of the people,
And I have become one on whom they may spit.

And my eye has grown dim because of the sorrow,
And my members are all like a shadow.

The upright are appalled at this,
And the innocent stir themselves up against the profane man.

Yet the righteous man will hold fast to his way,
And he whose hands are clean will wax yet stronger.

But all of you, come back now,
And I will not find a wise man among you.

My days have passed; broken are my plans,
The cherished thoughts of my heart.

They change night into day;
The light is near, they say in the face of darkness.

If I wait for Sheol as my house;
If I spread my couch in the darkness;

If I call out to the pit, You are my father;
You are my mother and my sister, to the worm;

Where then is my hope?
Indeed, my hope, who will see it?

It will go down to the bars of Sheol,
When, at the same time, we have rest in the dust.