Acts 7
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- 1Then the high priest asked, "Are these things true?"
- 2Stephen replied, "Men, brothers, and fathers, listen to me. The God of glory appeared to our ancestor Abraham while he was still living in Mesopotamia, before he moved to Haran."
- 3God told him, 'Leave your country and your relatives, and go to the land I will show you.'
- 4So Abraham left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After his father died, God moved him to this land where you're living now.
- 5God didn't give him any property here — not even a single foot of ground. But he promised to give the whole land to Abraham and his descendants after him, even though Abraham had no children at the time.
- 6God told him that his descendants would live as foreigners in a land that wasn't theirs, where they'd be enslaved and mistreated for 400 years.
- 7'But I will judge the nation that enslaves them,' God said, 'and afterward they will come out and worship me in this place.'
- 8Then God gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision. So Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him on the 8th day. Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the 12 patriarchs.
- 9The patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, so they sold him into Egypt. But God was with him.
- 10God rescued him from all his troubles and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. Pharaoh appointed him governor over all of Egypt and his entire royal household.
- 11Then a famine struck all of Egypt and Canaan, bringing terrible suffering. Our ancestors couldn't find any food.
- 12When Jacob heard there was grain in Egypt, he sent our ancestors there on their first trip.
- 13On their second visit, Joseph revealed his identity to his brothers, and Pharaoh learned about Joseph's family.
- 14Joseph then sent for his father Jacob and all his kindred — 75 souls in all.
- 15So Jacob went down to Egypt, where he eventually died, along with our ancestors.
- 16Their bodies were brought back to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had purchased with silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.
- 17As the time drew near for God to fulfill the promise he had made to Abraham, our people in Egypt grew and multiplied greatly.
- 18Till another king arose, who knew not Joseph.
- 19This king dealt craftily with our people and oppressed our ancestors, forcing them to cast out their young children so they would not live.
- 20It was during this time that Moses was born — an exceptionally beautiful child. His parents raised him in their home for 3 months.
- 21When he was finally abandoned, Pharaoh's daughter found him and raised him as her own son.
- 22Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and became powerful in both his words and his actions.
- 23When Moses was 40 years old, he felt compelled to visit his own people, the Israelites.
- 24He saw one of them being mistreated, so he stepped in to defend him. He struck the Egyptian and killed him to avenge the man who was being oppressed.
- 25Moses assumed his fellow Israelites would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they didn't understand.
- 26The next day, he came across two Israelites fighting and tried to make peace between them. 'Men, you're brothers!' he said. 'Why are you hurting each other?'
- 27But the one who was in the wrong shoved Moses away and said, 'Who appointed you as our ruler and judge?
- 28Are you going to kill me the way you killed that Egyptian yesterday?'
- 29When Moses heard this, he fled the country and lived as a foreigner in the land of Midian, where he had 2 sons.
- 3040 years later, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in the wilderness near Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire burning inside a bush.
- 31Moses was amazed at what he saw. As he moved closer to get a better look, the voice of the LORD spoke to him:
- 32'I am the God of your ancestors — the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' Moses was shaking with fear and didn't dare to look.
- 33The Lord told him, 'Take off your sandals, because the place where you're standing is holy ground.
- 34I have clearly seen how my people are suffering in Egypt. I've heard their groaning, and I've come down to set them free. Now go — I'm sending you to Egypt.'
- 35This is the same Moses they had rejected, saying, 'Who made you a ruler and judge?' Yet God sent him as both a ruler and a deliverer, through the angel who appeared to him in the bush.
- 36Moses led them out of Egypt after performing wonders and signs there, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness over the course of 40 years.
- 37This is the same Moses who told the Israelites, 'The Lord your God will raise up a prophet for you from among your own people, one like me; you shall listen to him.'
- 38This is he who was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our fathers. He received the living oracles to give to us.
- 39But our ancestors refused to obey him. They rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt,
- 40telling Aaron, 'Make us gods who will lead us, because this Moses who brought us out of Egypt — we don't know what's happened to him.'
- 41So they made an idol shaped like a calf, offered sacrifices to it, and celebrated what they had made with their own hands.
- 42So God turned away from them and allowed them to worship the host of heaven. As it is written in the book of the prophets: 'House of Israel, did you offer me sacrifices and offerings during those 40 years in the wilderness?'
- 43No — you carried along the shrine of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan, idols you made to worship. So I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.'
- 44Our ancestors had the tabernacle of the testimony in the wilderness, as God had appointed, speaking to Moses, that he should make it according to the pattern he had seen.
- 45Our fathers who came after also brought it in with Joshua into the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drove out before the face of our fathers, until the days of David.
- 46David found favor with God and asked for the privilege of building a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.
- 47But Solomon built him a house.
- 48However, the Most High doesn't live in buildings made by human hands. As the prophet says:
- 49'Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house could you build for me?' says the Lord. 'Where would my resting place be?
- 50Didn't my hand make all these things?'
- 51“You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.”
- 52Name one prophet your ancestors didn't persecute! They killed the ones who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him yourselves —
- 53you who received the law that was given through angels, yet never obeyed it!"
- 54When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart and gnashed their teeth at him.
- 55But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up into heaven and saw the glory of God, with Jesus standing at God's right hand.
- 56"Look!" he said. "I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!"
- 57At that, they screamed at the top of their lungs, covered their ears, and rushed at him all together.
- 58They dragged him out of the city and began stoning him. The witnesses piled their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.
- 59And they stoned Stephen, who called upon God, saying, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.'
- 60Then he dropped to his knees and cried out with a loud voice, "Lord, don't hold this sin against them!" After saying this, he fell asleep.