¹³ For you have heard about my former way of life in Judaism, that to an extraordinary degree I was persecuting the church of God, and trying to destroy it, ¹⁴ and was progressing in Judaism beyond many contemporaries in my nation, because^[a] I was a far more zealous adherent of the traditions handed down by my forefathers.

¹⁵ But when the one who set me apart^[b] from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace was pleased