Acts 9
The full text of Acts 9 in the Trinity Bible Version — clear modern English, translated from the original Greek. Free to read.
1 Meanwhile Saul was still breathing out threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord. He went to the high priest
2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them back to Jerusalem as prisoners.
3 As he traveled and was approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed all around him.
4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?"
5 "Who are you, Lord?" Saul asked. "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting," he replied.
6 "But get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do."
7 The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone.
8 Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus.
9 For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.
10 In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, "Ananias!" "Yes, Lord," he answered.
11 The Lord told him, "Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying.
12 In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight."
13 "Lord," Ananias answered, "I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your holy people in Jerusalem.
14 And here he has authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name."
15 But the Lord said to Ananias, "Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel.
16 I will show him how much he must suffer for my name."
17 Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, "Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit."
18 Immediately something like scales fell from Saul's eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized,
19 and after eating some food, he regained his strength. Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus.
20 At once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God.
21 All who heard him were amazed and asked, "Isn't this the man who caused havoc in Jerusalem among those who call on this name? And hasn't he come here to take them as prisoners to the chief priests?"
22 Yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Messiah.
23 After many days had gone by, the Jews conspired to kill him,
24 but Saul learned of their plot. Day and night they kept watch on the city gates in order to kill him.
25 But his followers took him by night and lowered him in a basket through an opening in the wall.
26 When he came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple.
27 But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. He told them how Saul had seen the Lord on his journey and that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus.
28 So Saul stayed with them and moved about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord.
29 He talked and debated with the Hellenistic Jews, but they tried to kill him.
30 When the believers learned of this, they took him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus.
31 Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace and was strengthened. Living in the fear of the Lord and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers.
32 As Peter traveled about the country, he went to visit the Lord's people who lived in Lydda.
33 There he found a man named Aeneas, who was paralyzed and had been bedridden for eight years.
34 "Aeneas," Peter said to him, "Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and roll up your mat." Immediately Aeneas got up.
35 All those who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord.
36 In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (which in Greek is Dorcas), who was always doing good and helping the poor.
37 About that time she became sick and died, and her body was washed and placed in an upstairs room.
38 Lydda was near Joppa, so when the disciples heard that Peter was there, they sent two men to him and urged him, "Please come at once!"
39 Peter went with them, and when he arrived he was taken upstairs. All the widows stood around him, weeping and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them.
40 Peter sent them all out of the room. Then he got down on his knees and prayed. Turning toward the dead woman, he said, "Tabitha, get up." She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up.
41 He took her by the hand and helped her to her feet. Then he called the believers and the widows and presented her to them alive.
42 This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord.
43 Peter stayed in Joppa for some time with a tanner named Simon.
Translation notes (9)
- Acts 9:2a The Way translates Greek hodos, 'way' or 'road', used absolutely as the earliest self-designation of the Christian movement, before the name 'Christian' arose at Antioch (Acts 11:26). The term recurs in Acts 19:9, 19:23, 22:4, 24:14 and 24:22, and may echo the way of the Lord announced in Isaiah 40:3.
- Acts 9:4a The Greek here preserves the Hebraic form Saoul (Σαούλ) rather than the Grecized Saulos used in the surrounding narrative, and the doubled name recalls divine calls such as those to Abraham, Moses, and Samuel (Genesis 22:11; Exodus 3:4; 1 Samuel 3:10). The question ti me diokeis, 'why are you persecuting me?', identifies the risen Jesus with his persecuted followers.
- Acts 9:7a Greek akouontes tes phones (ἀκούοντες τῆς φωνῆς), 'hearing the sound', uses the genitive case, while Acts 22:9 states with the accusative that the companions did not hear the voice. Many grammarians hold that the genitive marks perceiving a sound and the accusative comprehending its message, so the men heard a noise without understanding the words spoken to Saul.
- Acts 9:12a The phrase en horamati (ἐν ὁράματι), 'in a vision', is absent from Codex Sinaiticus, and its position varies among the manuscripts that contain it; the sense is little affected, since verse 10 already frames the scene as visionary. The Greek verb anablepsē means literally 'see again', marking recovery of sight rather than first sight.
- Acts 9:15a Greek skeuos ekloges (σκεῦος ἐκλογῆς) is literally 'a vessel of choosing', a Semitic-style genitive in which the noun functions as an adjective; hence 'chosen instrument'. The word skeuos denotes an ordinary container or implement, an image of Paul as a receptacle put to his owner's use rather than an agent acting in his own right.
- Acts 9:25a Greek dia tou teichous, 'through the wall'; Paul's own account in 2 Corinthians 11:33 adds that the escape was dia thyridos, 'through a window', hence the opening supplied here. Luke's word for the basket is spyris, the large hamper of the feeding narratives, while Paul uses sarganē, a plaited rope basket; the two independent reports agree on the event itself.
- Acts 9:31a Greek ekklēsia (ἐκκλησία), 'church', is singular here in the earliest manuscripts, including Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, presenting believers across Judea, Galilee, and Samaria as one body. Later Byzantine manuscripts, followed by the King James tradition, read the plural 'churches'. The participle oikodoumenē, literally 'being built up', is rendered here as 'strengthened'.
- Acts 9:36a Tabitha is Aramaic and Dorkas (Δορκάς) is Greek, both meaning 'gazelle'; Luke supplies the translation for his Greek-speaking readers. The word for disciple here, mathetria (μαθήτρια), is the feminine form and occurs only in this verse in the New Testament.
- Acts 9:43a Greek byrsei (βυρσεῖ), 'tanner', identifies Simon's trade, which involved handling animal carcasses and was widely regarded in Jewish tradition as defiling. Peter's willingness to lodge with such a man anticipates the vision at this very house in the following chapter, where he is taught to call no person unclean.
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