1 ¹¹ I must make it clear to you, my friends, that the gospel you heard me preach is no human invention. 1 ¹² I did not take it over from any man; no man taught it me; I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
1 ¹³ You have heard what my manner of life was when I was still a practising Jew: how savagely I persecuted the church of God, and tried to destroy it; 1 ¹⁴ and how in the practice of our national religion I was outstripping many of my Jewish contemporaries in my boundless devotion to the traditions of my ancestors. 1 ¹⁵ But then in his good pleasure God, who had set me apart from birth and called me through his grace, chose 1 ¹⁶ to reveal his Son to me and through me, in order that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles. When that happened, without consulting any human being, 1 ¹⁷ without going up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before me, I went off at once to Arabia, and afterwards returned to Damascus.

1 ¹⁸ Three years later I did go up to Jerusalem to get to know Cephas. I stayed with him for a fortnight, 1 ¹⁹ without seeing any other of the apostles, except Or: but only. James the Lord's brother. 1 ²⁰ What I write is plain truth; before God I am not lying. 1 ²¹ Next I went to the regions of Syria and Cilicia, 1 ²² and remained unknown by sight Or: unknown personally. to Christ's congregations in Judaea. 1 ²³ They only heard it said, 'Our former persecutor is preaching the good news of the faith which once he tried to destroy'; 1 ²⁴ and they praised God for me.