Acts 7
1 Then the high priest asked, “Is this really so?”
2 He replied, “Brothers and fathers, listen. 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 land and your relatives, and come to the land I will show you.’
4 So he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. From there, after his father died, God moved him to this land where you now live.
5 He gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot's breadth, but promised to give it to him and his descendants after him as a possession, even though he had no child yet.
6 And God spoke this way: ‘His descendants will live as foreigners in a foreign land, where they will be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years.
7 But I will judge the nation they serve as slaves,’ God said, ‘and after that they will leave and worship me in this place.’
8 He gave him the covenant of circumcision. So Abraham fathered Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day; Isaac fathered Jacob, and Jacob the twelve patriarchs.
9 The patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, 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 appointed him governor over Egypt and his whole household.
11 Then famine came over all Egypt and Canaan, bringing great hardship, and our fathers could not find food.
12 When Jacob heard there was grain in Egypt, he sent our fathers there for the first time.
13 On the second visit, Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to Pharaoh.
14 Joseph sent for Jacob his father and all his relatives, seventy-five people in all.
15 Jacob went down to Egypt, and there he and our fathers died.
16 They were carried to Shechem and laid in the tomb Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.”
17 “As the time drew near for the promise God had made to Abraham to be fulfilled, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt,
18 until another king, who did not know Joseph, came to power over Egypt.
19 He dealt cunningly with our people and mistreated our fathers, forcing them to abandon their babies so they would not survive.
20 At that time Moses was born, and he was beautiful in God’s sight. He was cared for in his father’s house for three months.
21 When he was abandoned, Pharaoh’s daughter took him in and raised him as her own son.
22 Moses was taught all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was powerful in words and deeds.
23 When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the Israelites.
24 When he saw one of them being wronged, he defended him and avenged the oppressed man by killing the Egyptian.
25 He thought his brothers would understand that God was giving them deliverance through him, but they did not understand.
26 The next day, he came upon some of them as they were fighting and tried to make peace between them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why are you mistreating each other?’
27 But the one who was mistreating his neighbor pushed Moses away and said, ‘Who appointed you ruler and judge over us?
28 Do you want to kill me, as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’
29 At these words 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 wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush.
31 When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight. As he came 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 and did not dare to look.
33 Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.
34 I have indeed seen the suffering of my people in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning. I have come down to rescue them. Now come, I will send you to Egypt.’”
35 “This Moses, whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who appointed you ruler and judge?’—this is the one God sent as ruler and deliverer, by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.
36 He led them out, performing wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years.
37 This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you, from among your brothers, a prophet like me.’
38 He was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our fathers. He received living words to give to you.
39 Our fathers were unwilling to obey him. Instead, they rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt,
40 saying to Aaron, ‘Make gods for us to go ahead of us. We don’t know what happened to this Moses, who brought us out of the land of Egypt.’
41 In those days they made a calf, offered a sacrifice to the idol, and celebrated the works of their hands.
42 But God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: ‘House of Israel, was it to me that you offered victims and sacrifices for forty years in the wilderness?
43 You carried the tent of Moloch and the star of the god Rephan, the images you made to worship. And I will carry you away beyond Babylon.’”
44 “The tent of the testimony was with our fathers in the wilderness, just as the one who spoke to Moses had commanded him to make it according to the pattern he had seen.
45 Our fathers received it and brought it with Joshua when they took possession of the nations God drove out before our fathers, and it remained there until the days of David.
46 David found favor with God and asked to find a dwelling place for the house of Jacob.
47 But Solomon 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 the footstool for my feet. What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord, or where will my resting place be?
50 Was it not my hand that made all these things?’
51 “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. You are just like your fathers.
52 Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered.
53 You received the Law through the direction of angels, but you did not keep it.”
54 When they heard these things, they were enraged in their hearts and gnashed their teeth at him.
55 But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw God’s glory, and Jesus standing at God’s right hand.
56 He said, “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at God’s right hand.”
57 They shouted loudly, covered their ears, and rushed at him together.
58 They threw him out of the city and began stoning him. The witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul.
59 As they stoned Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
60 Then he knelt down and cried out loudly, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” After saying this, he fell asleep.
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