Acts 26:9

“But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me.

“They will put you out of the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God.

“And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, just as your rulers did also.

Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest,

“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,

I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering both men and women into prisons,

“And I answered, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ And He said to me, ‘I am Jesus the Nazarene, whom you are persecuting.’

“But this I confess to you, that according to the Way, which they call a sect, I do serve the God of our fathers, believing everything that is in accordance with the Law and that is written in the Prophets;

as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.

even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief;