I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as ye all are this day.
I am verily a man which am a Jew ('I am a Jew'), born in Tarsus (see the note at Acts 21:39), [a city] in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet (see the note at Luke 10:39 ) of Gamaliel (see the note at Acts 5:34 ) - a fact of great importance in the apostle's history, standing in the same relation to his future career as Moses' education in the Egyptian court to the work for which he was destined.
And taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers - `according to the rigidity of the ancestral law,' the strictest form of traditional Judaism.
And was zealous (or 'a zealot') toward God, as ye all are this day - his own murderous zeal against the disciples of the Lord Jesus being merely reflected in their present treatment of himself.