John 15:17-16:2

¹⁷ “I command these things to you, that you may love one another. ¹⁸ If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. ¹⁹ If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, since I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. ²⁰ Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his lord.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. ²¹ But all these things will they do to you for my name’s sake, because they don’t know him who sent me. ²² If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. ²³ He who hates me, hates my Father also. ²⁴ If I hadn’t done among them the works which no one else did, they wouldn’t have had sin. But now have they seen and also hated both me and my Father. ²⁵ But this happened so that the word may be fulfilled which was written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.’ ²⁶ “When the Counselor has come, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me. ²⁷ You will also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning. ¹ “I have said these things to you so that you wouldn’t be caused to stumble. ² They will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the time comes that whoever kills you will think that he offers service to God.

Acts 9:20-31

²⁰ Immediately in the synagogues he proclaimed the Christ, that he is the Son of God. ²¹ All who heard him were amazed, and said, “Isn’t this he who in Jerusalem made havoc of those who called on this name? And he had come here intending to bring them bound before the chief priests!” ²² But Saul increased more in strength, and confounded the Jews who lived at Damascus, proving that this is the Christ. ²³ When many days were fulfilled, the Jews conspired together to kill him, ²⁴ but their plot became known to Saul. They watched the gates both day and night that they might kill him, ²⁵ but his disciples took him by night, and let him down through the wall, lowering him in a basket. ²⁶ When Saul had come to Jerusalem, he tried to join himself to the disciples; but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple. ²⁷ But Barnabas took him, and brought him to the apostles, and declared to them how he had seen the Lord on the way, and that he had spoken to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. ²⁸ He was with them entering into Jerusalem, ²⁹ preaching boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus. He spoke and disputed against the Hellenists, but they were seeking to kill him. ³⁰ When the brothers knew it, they brought him down to Caesarea, and sent him off to Tarsus. ³¹ So the assemblies throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace, and were built up. They were multiplied, walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.