Acts 7

1Then the high priest said, "Is that how these things are?"

2He said, "Men, brothers, and fathers, listen. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran."

3And he said to him, “Leave your land and your relatives, and come here into the land I will show you.”

4Then he left the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. From there, after his father died, he brought him into this land where you now live.

5And he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a place to set foot, but promised to give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him, though he had no child.

6But God spoke thus: that his offspring would live as aliens in a foreign land, and they would enslave them and mistreat them for four hundred years.

7And I will judge the nation they will serve, God said, and after these things they will come out and worship me in this place.

8And he gave him the covenant of circumcision. So he fathered Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day, and Isaac fathered Jacob, and Jacob fathered the twelve patriarchs.

9The patriarchs, envious of Joseph, sold him into Egypt. God was with him.

10and rescued him from all his afflictions, and granted him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and appointed him ruler over Egypt and his entire household.

11But a famine came over all Egypt and Canaan, and great distress, and our fathers found no provisions.

12But when Jacob heard there were provisions in Egypt, he sent our fathers out first.

13And the second time, Joseph was revealed to his brothers, and his family became known to Pharaoh.

14Then Joseph sent and summoned his father Jacob and all his relatives, seventy-five souls.

15Jacob went down to Egypt, and he died—he and our fathers.

16And they were carried over to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham bought for a price in silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.

17But as the time of the promise drew near, which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt.

18until another king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.

19This one dealt craftily with our nation, harmed our forefathers, and compelled them to expose their infants so none would survive.

20At that time Moses was born, and he was fair before God; he was brought up three months in his father's house.

21But when he was exposed, Pharaoh's daughter picked him up and raised him as her own son.

22And Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was powerful in his words and deeds.

23But when forty years were fulfilled for him, it arose in his heart to visit his brothers, the sons of Israel.

24Seeing someone being wronged, he defended him and executed vengeance for the one being oppressed by striking the Egyptian.

25He supposed his brothers would understand that God through his hand was granting them salvation, but they did not understand.

26And the next day he showed himself to them as they were fighting and tried to reconcile them to peace, saying, "Men, you are brothers. Why do you harm one another?"

27But the one wronging his neighbor thrust him away, saying, "Who appointed you ruler and judge over us?"

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

29Moses fled at this word and became a sojourner in the land of Midian, where he fathered two sons.

30And after forty years were completed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush.

31When Moses saw it, he marveled at the vision. As he drew near to examine it, the voice of the Lord came.

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

33The Lord said to him, “Take your sandal off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.”

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

35This Moses, whom they refused, saying, "Who appointed you ruler and judge?"—God sent this same one as ruler and deliverer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.

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

37This is that Moses who said to the sons of Israel, "God will raise up a prophet for you from your brothers, like me."

38This is he who was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel speaking to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, who received living oracles to give to us.

39to whom our fathers refused to become obedient, but thrust him away and turned back in their hearts to Egypt.

40They said to Aaron, “Make us gods who will go before us, for this Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt—we do not know what has become of him.”

41And they made a calf in those days, offered a sacrifice to the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their hands.

42God turned and handed them over to worship the host of heaven, just as it has been written in the book of the prophets: "Did you offer me slain beasts and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, house of Israel?"

43You took up the tabernacle of Moloch, the star of your god Raiphan, and the figures you made to worship them; I will carry you away beyond Babylon.

44Our fathers had the tabernacle of testimony in the wilderness, as the one speaking to Moses commanded him to make it according to the pattern that he had seen.

45Which our fathers who succeeded them also brought in with Jesus into the possession of the nations whom God drove out before our fathers, until the days of David.

46who found favor before God and asked to find a tabernacle for the God of Jacob.

47But Solomon built a house for him.

48But the Most High does not dwell in handmade temples, as the prophet says.

49Heaven is my throne, and earth a footstool for my feet. What kind of house will you build me? says the Lord. Or what place of my rest?

50Didn't my hand make all these things?

51Stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit—as your fathers did, and you do.

52Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, of whom you have now become betrayers and murderers.

53You who received the law through ordinances of angels, and did not keep it.

54Now when they heard these things, they were enraged in their hearts and gnashed their teeth at him.

55But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed intently into heaven and saw God's glory and Jesus standing at God's right hand.

56and said, “See, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

57But they shouted with a loud voice, plugged their ears, and rushed at him in unison.

58They forced him out of the city and stoned him, and the witnesses laid aside their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.

59And they were stoning Stephen as he called upon the Lord Jesus, saying, "Receive my spirit!"

60He bowed his knees and cried out with a loud voice, "Lord, do not charge this sin to them!" Having said this, he fell asleep.