¹³ You have heard about my past life. I belonged to the Jewish religion. I hurt the church of God very much and tried to destroy it. ¹⁴ I was becoming a leader in the Jewish religion. I did better than most other Jews of my age. I tried harder than anyone else to follow the old rules. These rules were the customs handed down by our ancestors.

¹⁵ But God had special plans for me even before I was born. So he called me through his grace that I might