Acts 7

¹ Then the high priest asked, "Is this true?"

² And Stephen said: "Brothers and fathers, listen to me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was in Mesopotamia, before he settled in Haran,

³ and said to him, 'Leave your country and your relatives, and go to the land I will show you.'

⁴ So he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After his father died, God moved him from there into this land where you now live.

⁵ He gave him no inheritance here, not even a foot of ground, yet he promised to give it to him as a possession, and to his descendants after him, even though Abraham had no child.

⁶ God spoke to this effect: that his descendants would be strangers in a foreign land, and that its people would enslave and mistreat them for four hundred years.

⁷ 'But I will judge the nation they serve as slaves,' God said, 'and afterward they will come out and worship me in this place.'

⁸ Then he gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision. And so Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day, and Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs.

⁹ "Because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, they sold him into Egypt. But God was with him

¹⁰ and rescued him from all his troubles. He gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh king of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt and over all his household.

¹¹ Then a famine struck all of Egypt and Canaan, bringing great suffering, and our ancestors could find no food.

¹² When Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our ancestors there on their first visit.

¹³ On the second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Pharaoh learned about Joseph's family.

¹⁴ Then Joseph sent for his father Jacob and his whole family, seventy-five people in all.

¹⁵ So Jacob went down to Egypt, where he and our ancestors died.

¹⁶ Their bodies were brought back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor at Shechem.

¹⁷ "As the time drew near for God to fulfill the promise he had made to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt,

¹⁸ until another king, who knew nothing of Joseph, rose to power over Egypt.

¹⁹ He dealt deceitfully with our people and oppressed our ancestors, forcing them to abandon their infants so they would not survive.

²⁰ At that time Moses was born, and he was beautiful in God's sight. For three months he was cared for in his father's house,

²¹ and when he was abandoned, Pharaoh's daughter took him and raised him as her own son.

²² So Moses was trained in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in his words and actions.

²³ "When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites.

²⁴ Seeing one of them being mistreated, he came to his defense and avenged the man by striking down the Egyptian.

²⁵ He assumed his own people would understand that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not.

²⁶ The next day he came upon two of them fighting and tried to reconcile them, saying, 'Men, you are brothers. Why are you hurting each other?'

²⁷ But the man who was mistreating his neighbor pushed Moses aside and said, 'Who made you ruler and judge over us?

²⁸ Do you want to kill me the way you killed the Egyptian yesterday?'

²⁹ At this Moses fled and lived as a foreigner in the land of Midian, where he had two sons.

³⁰ "After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the desert near Mount Sinai, in the flames of a burning bush.

³¹ When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight. As he went closer to look, the voice of the Lord came:

³² 'I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.' Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look.

³³ Then the Lord said to him, 'Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.

³⁴ I have surely seen the suffering of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. Now come, I am sending you to Egypt.'

³⁵ "This same Moses, whom they rejected with the words, 'Who made you ruler and judge?'—this is the one God sent to be both ruler and deliverer, with the help of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.

³⁶ He led them out, performing wonders and signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the desert for forty years.

³⁷ "This is the same Moses who told the Israelites, 'God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people.'

³⁸ He was in the assembly in the desert, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our ancestors, and he received living words to pass on to us.

³⁹ "But our ancestors refused to obey him. Instead, they rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt.

⁴⁰ They said to Aaron, 'Make us gods who will lead us. As for this Moses who brought us out of Egypt—we have no idea what has happened to him.'

⁴¹ That was when they made an idol shaped like a calf. They brought a sacrifice to it and held a celebration over the work of their own hands.

⁴² So God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: "Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the desert, house of Israel?

⁴³ You took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan, the images you made to worship. So I will send you into exile beyond Babylon."

⁴⁴ "Our ancestors had the tent of the testimony in the desert. It was made just as God directed Moses, according to the pattern he had seen.

⁴⁵ Our ancestors who received it brought it in with Joshua when they took the land from the nations God drove out before them. It remained until the time of David,

⁴⁶ who enjoyed God's favor and asked to provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.

⁴⁷ But it was Solomon who built a house for him.

⁴⁸ Yet the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands. As the prophet says:

⁴⁹ "Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord, or where is my resting place?

⁵⁰ Did not my own hand make all these things?"

⁵¹ "You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors did.

⁵² Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, and now you have betrayed and murdered him—

⁵³ you who received the law as ordained through angels but have not kept it."

⁵⁴ When they heard this, they were furious and ground their teeth at him.

⁵⁵ But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at God's right hand.

⁵⁶ "Look," he said, "I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God."

⁵⁷ At this they covered their ears, and with a loud shout they all rushed at him together.

⁵⁸ They dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile the witnesses laid their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul.

⁵⁹ While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."

⁶⁰ Then he fell to his knees and cried out, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." And when he had said this, he fell asleep.