You’ll be arrested and put on trial. But don’t worry ahead of time about what to say. Just say what God brings to your mind at the time. It won’t be you speaking; it will be the Holy Spirit.
The prophets were shown that they weren’t serving themselves. Instead, they were serving you when they spoke about the things that you’ve now heard from those who preached the good news to you with the help of the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.
That’s what we speak about, and we don’t use words that we’ve learned from human wisdom. We use words that the Holy Spirit has taught us, and we use them to explain spiritual truths.
If any of you needs wisdom, you should ask God for it, and he’ll give it to you. God gives freely to everyone and doesn’t tell them they shouldn’t have asked.
The God of our fathers—of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—has done this, to bring glory to his servant Jesus. But you handed Jesus over to be killed. You spoke against him when he was in Pilate’s court, even though Pilate had decided to let him go.
“Look out—you’ll be handed over to the local courts, and you’ll be whipped in the synagogues. You’ll be brought in for questioning by governors and kings because of me. But in that way, you’ll become witnesses to them.
“Brothers will hand over their brothers to be killed, and fathers will hand over their children. Children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death.
“But before all this, people will arrest you and systematically oppress you. They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison. You will be brought to kings and governors. All this will happen to you because of my name,