Paul's Conversion and Independence

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For you have heard about my former way of life in [traditional] Judaism — how I did my best to persecute God’s Messianic Community and destroy it;

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and how, since I was more of a zealot for the traditions handed down by my forefathers than most Jews my age, I advanced in [traditional] Judaism more rapidly than they did.

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But when God, who picked me out before I was born and called me by his grace, chose

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to reveal his Son to me, so that I might announce him to the Gentiles, I did not consult anyone;

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and I did not go up to Yerushalayim to see those who were emissaries before me. Instead, I immediately went off to Arabia and afterwards returned to Dammesek.

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Not until three years later did I go up to Yerushalayim to make Kefa’s acquaintance, and I stayed with him for two weeks,

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but I did not see any of the other emissaries except Ya‘akov the Lord’s brother.

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(Concerning these matters I am writing you about, I declare before God that I am not lying!)

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Next I went to Syria and Cilicia;

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but in Y’hudah, the Messianic congregations didn’t even know what I looked like —

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they were only hearing the report, “The one who used to persecute us now preaches the Good News of the faith he was formerly out to destroy”;

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and they praised God for me.

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