But some men from what was called the Synagogue of the Freedmen, including both Cyrenians and Alexandrians, and some from Cilicia and Asia, rose up and were arguing with Stephen.
“On account of this, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will flog in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city,
“But see to yourselves; for they will deliver you to the courts, and you will be beaten in the synagogues, and you will stand before governors and kings for My sake, as a witness to them.
“But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, delivering you to the synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for My name’s sake.
But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who came to Antioch and began speaking to the Greeks also, proclaiming the good news of the Lord Jesus.
Now there were at Antioch, in the church that was there, prophets and teachers: Barnabas, and Simeon who was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.
and they sent this letter by them, “The apostles and the brothers who are elders, to the brothers in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia who are from the Gentiles, greetings.
And you see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a considerable crowd, saying that things made with hands are not gods.
Now when the seven days were almost over, the Jews from Asia, upon noticing him in the temple, began to throw all the crowd into confusion and laid hands on him,
“I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but having been brought up in this city, having been instructed at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strictness of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God just as you all are today,
And as I punished them often in all the synagogues, I tried to force them to blaspheme; and being furiously enraged at them, I kept pursuing them even to foreign cities.