Acts 7

1Then the high priest asked Stephen: Are these charges true?

2Stephen replied: Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Harran.

3God said to him: Leave your country and your people, and go to the land I will show you.

4So Abraham left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Harran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living.

5God did not give Abraham any land there, not even enough ground to stand on. But God promised that Abraham and his family after him would own the land one day, even though Abraham had no child yet.

6God spoke to him this way: Your family will be strangers living in a country that is not their own. The people there will make them slaves and treat them badly for four hundred years.

7God said: But I will punish the nation that makes them slaves. After that, my people will come out of that country and worship me in this place.

8Then God gave Abraham the sign of circumcision as a promise between them. So when Isaac was born, Abraham circumcised him on the eighth day. Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve family leaders of Israel.

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

10God rescued Joseph from all his troubles. God gave Joseph wisdom and helped Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, like him. So Pharaoh made Joseph ruler over Egypt and over Pharaoh's whole palace.

11Then a famine struck all Egypt and Canaan, bringing great suffering, and our ancestors could not find food.

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

13On their second visit, Joseph told his brothers who he was, and Pharaoh learned about Joseph's family.

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

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

16Their bodies were brought back to Shechem. They were placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought there from the sons of Hamor, paying a certain amount of money for it.

17As the time got closer for God to keep His promise to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt grew much larger.

18Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt.

19This king tricked and lied to our people. He treated our ancestors badly, forcing them to throw out their newborn babies so that the babies would die.

20At that time Moses was born, and he was no ordinary child. For three months he was cared for by his family.

21When he was placed outside, Pharaoh's daughter took him and brought him up as her own son.

22Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.

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

24He saw an Egyptian treating one of them badly, so Moses stepped in to help him. Moses killed the Egyptian to get back at him for it.

25Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not.

26The next day Moses came upon two Israelites who were fighting. He tried to make peace between them by saying: Men, you are brothers. Why do you want to hurt each other?

27But the man who was mistreating the other pushed Moses aside and said: Who made you ruler and judge over us?

28Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?

29When Moses heard this, he fled to Midian, where he settled as a foreigner and had two sons.

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

31When he saw this, he was amazed at the sight. As he went over to get a closer look, he heard the Lord say:

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

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

34I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt.

35This is the same Moses that the people had rejected when they said: Who made you ruler and judge? But God sent Moses to be their ruler and to save them, with the help of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.

36He led them out of Egypt and performed wonders and signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and for forty years in the wilderness.

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

38Moses was there with the people gathered in the wilderness. He was with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors. Moses received living words from God to pass on to us.

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

40They told Aaron: Make us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who led us out of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.

41That was the time they made an idol shaped like a calf. They brought sacrifices to it, and they celebrated the thing that their own hands had made.

42But God turned away from them and let them worship the sun, the moon, and the stars instead. This matches what is written in the book of the prophets: Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings for forty years in the wilderness, people of Israel?

43You have carried the shrine of the god Molek and the star of your god Rephan, the idols you made to worship. So I will send you away, far beyond Babylon.

44Our ancestors had the sacred tent that held God's covenant with them in the wilderness. It was built just as God told Moses to build it, following the plan that Moses had seen.

45After they received this tent, our ancestors, led by Joshua, brought it into the land. This was the land God took from the other nations and gave to our ancestors. The tent stayed in that land until the time of David,

46David pleased God, and he asked if he could build a house for the God of Jacob to live in.

47But it was Solomon who built the house for Him.

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

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

50Has not my hand made all these things?

51You stubborn people! Your hearts and ears are still closed to God. You are just like your ancestors: you always fight against the Holy Spirit!

52Was there ever a prophet that your ancestors did not hurt and chase away? They even killed the ones who said the Righteous One was coming. And now you have betrayed Him and killed Him —

53You who received the law that was given through angels but have not obeyed it.

54When the members of the council heard this, they were furious and ground their teeth at him in anger.

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

56He said: Look! I see heaven open, and I see the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.

57At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him,

58Dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.

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

60Then he fell on his knees and cried out: Lord, do not hold this sin against them. When he had said this, he fell asleep.