< Acts 7 >
1 Then the high priest said, Are these things indeed thus?
2 And he said, Brethren, and fathers, hearken: the God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, while he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran;
3 and said to him, "Depart from your country and from your kindred, and come into a land which I will show you."
4 Then departing from the land of the Chaldeans, he dwelt in Charran: and from thence, after his father died, he caused him to remove his habitation into this land, in which you now dwell.
5 And he gave him no inheritance in it, not so much as the breadth of his foot: nevertheless he promised to give it for a possession to him, even to his seed after him, when he had no child.
6 And God spoke thus--that his seed should "sojourn in a foreign land, and that they should enslave and abuse them four hundred years.
7 And the nation to which they are enslaved (said God) I will judge; and afterward they shall come out, and serve me in this place."
8 And he gave him the institution of circumcision; and so he begot Isaac, and circumcised him on the eighth day: and Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot the twelve patriarchs.
9 And the patriarchs, moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt: nevertheless, God was with him,
10 and delivered him but of all his afflictions, and gave him favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh, king of Egypt; and he constituted him ruler over Egypt and all his house.
11 And a famine came upon all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction; and our fathers did not find sustenance.
12 But Jacob, hearing that there was corn in Egypt, sent our fathers first;
13 and the second time Joseph was made known to his brethren; and the family of Joseph was made known to Pharaoh.
14 And Joseph sent, and invited his father Jacob, and all his kindred, amounting to seventy-five souls.
15 So Jacob went down into Egypt, and died, he and our fathers:
16 and they were carried over to Sychem, and were laid in the sepulcher which Abraham purchased, for a sum of money, of the sons of Emmor, the father of Sychem.
17 And as the time of the promise drew near, which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt;
18 till another king arose, who knew not Joseph.
19 He, forming craft designs against our kindred, treated our fathers injuriously, by causing their infants to be exposed, that their race might perish.
20 In which time Moses was born, and was exceedingly beautiful; and he was bred up for three months in his father's house:
21 and being exposed, the daughter of Pharaoh took him up, and nourished him for her own son:
22 and Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians: and he was mighty in his speeches and actions.
23 But when he was arrived at the full age of forty years, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel.
24 And beholding one of them injured, he defended him; and smiting the Egyptian, he avenged him that was oppressed.
25 And he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would give them salvation by his hand: but they did not understand.
26 And the next day he showed himself to them, as they were quarreling, and would have persuaded them to peace, saying, Men, you are brethren; why do you injure one another?
27 But he that injured his neighbor, thrust him away, saying, Who has made you a ruler and a judge or us?
28 Will you kill me, as you did the Egyptian, yesterday?
29 Then Moses fled at this saying, and became a sojourner in the land of Midian; where he begot two sons.
30 And when forty years were fulfilled, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire, in a bush, in the wilderness of Mount Sinai.
31 And Moses seeing it, admired the vision: and as he drew near to behold it, the voice of the Lord came to him, saying,
32 "I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And Moses trembled, and did not dare to behold it.
33 And the Lord said to him, "Loose your shoes from your feet; for the place in which you stand is holy ground.
34 I have surely seen the evil treatment of my people, which are in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning, and I am come down to deliver them; and now, come, I send you into Egypt."
35 This very Moses, whom they refused, saying, Who constituted you a ruler and a judge, God sent to be a ruler and a deliverer, by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.
36 He led them forth, doing wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness, for forty years.
37 This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, "A prophet like me shall the Lord God raise up to you from among your brethren; him shall you hear."
38 This is he who was in the assembly in the wilderness, with the angel that spoke to him on Mount Sinai; and with our fathers, who received the lively oracles, to give to us.
39 To whom our fathers would not be obedient; but thrust him from them, and in their hearts returned back again to Egypt;
40 saying to Aaron, Make us gods who may march before us; for, as for this Moses, who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we know not what is become of him.
41 And they made a calf in those days, and brought a sacrifice to the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands.
42 So God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, "O house of Israel, did you offer victims and sacrifices to me for forty years in the wilderness?
43 And you have since taken up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your God, Remphan; figures which you have made to worship: and therefore, I will carry you away beyond Babylon."
44 The tabernacle of the testimony was with our fathers in the wilderness, as he had appointed, who spoke to Moses to make it according to the model which he had seen:
45 which, also, our fathers receiving, brought in with Joshua into the possession of the heathen; whom God drove out from before the face of our fathers, until the days of David;
46 who found favor before God, and made it his petition to find a dwelling for the God of Jacob.
47 But Solomon built him a house.
48 Yet the Most High dwells not in temples made with hands: as says the prophet:
49 "Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: what house will you build for me, says the Lord;
50 or, what is the place of my rest? Has not my hand made all these things?
51 Oh! stiff necked, and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit: as your fathers did, so do you.
52 Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? yes, they slew those who spoke before, of the coming of that Righteous One, of whom you have now become the betrayers and murderers.
53 Who have received the law through ranks of messengers, and have not kept it.
54 And hearing these things, they were cut to the heart; and they gnashed their teeth at him.
55 But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looking up steadfastly toward heaven, saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
56 And he said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.
57 But crying out with a loud voice, they stopped their ears, and rushed upon him with one accord.
58 And casting him out of the city, they stoned him; and the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man, whose name was Saul.
59 And they stoned Stephen, invoking, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
60 And bending his knees, he cried with a loud voice, O Lord, charge not this sin to their account. And when he had said this he fell asleep.
