The In-Dept Study of the Bible
Apostles 07
1 The high priest said, “Are these
things so?”
2 He said, “Brothers and fathers, listen.
The God of glory appeared to our father
Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia,
before he lived in Haran,
3 and said to him, ‘Get out of your land
and away from your relatives, and come
into a land which I will show you.’*
4 Then he came out of the land of the
Chaldaeans and lived in Haran. From
there, when his father was dead, God
moved him into this land where you are
now living.
5 He gave him no inheritance in it, no,
not so much as to set his foot on. He
promised that he would give it to him for a
possession, and to his offspring after him,
when he still had no child.
6 God spoke in this way: that his off spring
would live as aliens in a strange
land, and that they would be enslaved and
mistreated for four hundred years.
7 ‘I will judge the nation to which they
will be in bondage,’ said God, ‘and after
thatthey will come out andserveme inthis place.’*
8 He gave him the covenant of circumcision.
So Abraham became the father of
Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day.
Isaacbecame the father ofJacob, andJacob
became the father ofthe twelvepatriarchs.
9 “The patriarchs, moved with jealousy
against Joseph, sold him into Egypt. God
was with him
10 and delivered him out of all his afflictions,
and gave him favor and wisdom
before Pharaoh, king of Egypt. He made
him governor over Egypt and all his house.
11 Now a famine came over all the land
of Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction.
Our fathers found no food.
12 But when Jacob heard that there was
grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers the
first time.
13 On the second time Joseph was made
known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family
was revealed to Pharaoh.
14 Joseph sent and summoned Jacob his
father and all his relatives, seventy-five
souls.
15 Jacob went down into Egypt and he
died, himself and our fathers;
16 and they were brought back to
Shechem and laid in the tomb that
Abraham bought for a price in silver from the
children of Hamor of Shechem.
17 “But as the time of the promise came
close which God had sworn to Abraham,
the people grew and multiplied in Egypt,
18 until there arose a different king who
didn’t know Joseph.
19 The same took advantage of our race
and mistreated our fathers, and forced
them to abandon their babies, so that they
wouldn’t stay alive.
20 At that time Moses was born, and
was exceedingly handsome to God. He
was nourished three months in his father’s
house.
21 When he was abandoned, Pharaoh’s
daughter took him up and reared him as
her own son.
22 Moses was instructed in all the wisdom
of the Egyptians. He was mighty in his
words and works.
23 But when he was forty years old, it
came into his heart to visit his brothers,†
the children of Israel.
24 Seeing one of them suffer wrong, he
defended him and avenged him who was
oppressed, striking the Egyptian.
25 He supposed that his brothers understood
that God, by his hand, was giving
them deliverance; but they didn’t understand.
26 “The day following, he appeared to
them as they fought, and urged them to be
at peace again, saying, ‘Sirs, you are
brothers. Why do you wrong one another?’
27 But he who did his neighbor wrong
pushed him away, saying, ‘Who made you
a ruler and a judge over us?
28 Do you wantto kill me as you killed the
Egyptian yesterday?’*
29 Moses fled at this saying, and became
a stranger in the land of Midian, where he
became the father of two sons.
30 “When forty years were fulfilled, an
angel of the Lord appeared to him in the
wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of
fire in a bush.
31 When Moses saw it, he wondered at
the sight. As he came close to see, the voice
of the Lord came to him,
32 ‘I am the God of your fathers: the God
of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God
of Jacob.’* Moses trembled and dared not look.
33 The Lord said to him, ‘Take off your
sandals, for the place where you stand is
holy ground.
34 I have surely seen the affliction of my
people who are in Egypt, and have heard
their groaning. I have come down to deliver
them. Now come, I will send you into Egypt.’*
35 “This Moses whom they refused, saying,
‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’—
God has sent him as both a ruler and a
deliverer by the hand of the angel who
appeared to him in the bush.
36 This man led them out, having worked
wonders and signs in Egypt, in the Red Sea,
and in the wilderness for forty years.
37 This is that Moses who said to the
children of Israel, ‘The Lord our God will
raise up a prophet for you from among
your brothers, like me.’‡*
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 living revelations to give to us,
39 to whom our fathers wouldn’t be obedient,
but rejected him and turned back in
their hearts to Egypt,
40 saying to Aaron, ‘Make us gods that
will go before us, for as for this Moses who
led us out of the land of Egypt, we don’t
know what has become of him.’*
41 They made a calf in those days, and
brought a sacrifice to the idol, and rejoiced
in the works of their hands.
42 But God turned away and gave them
up to serve the army of the sky,§ as it is
written in the book of the prophets,
‘Did you offer to me slain animals and
sacrifices forty years in the wilderness,
O house of Israel?
43 You took up the tabernacle of Moloch,
the star of your god Rephan, the figures
which you made to worship, so I will carry
you away*beyond Babylon.’
44 “Our fathers had the tabernacle of the
testimony in the wilderness, even as he
who spoke to Moses commanded him to
make it according to the pattern that he
had seen;
45 which also our fathers, in their turn,
brought in with Joshua when they entered
into the possession of the nations whom
God drove out before the face of our
fathers to the days of David,
46 who found favor in the sight of God,
and asked to find a habitation for the God
of Jacob.
47 But Solomon built him a house.
48 However, the Most High doesn’t dwell
in temples made with hands, as the
prophet says,
49 ‘heaven is my throne, and the earth
a footstool for my feet. What kind
of house will you build me?’ says the Lord.
‘Or what is the place of my rest?
50 Didn’t my hand make all these things?’*
51 “You stiff-necked and uncircumcised
in heart and ears, you always resist the
Holy Spirit! As your fathers did, so you do.
52 Which of the prophets didn’t your fathers
persecute? They killed those who foretold
the coming of the Righteous One,
of whom you have now become betrayers
and murderers.
53 You received the law as it was ordained
by angels, and didn’t keep it!”
54 Now when they heard these things,
they were cut to the heart, and they
gnashed at him with their teeth.
55 But he, being full of the Holy Spirit,
looked up steadfastly into heaven and saw
the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the
right hand of God,
56 and said, “Behold, I see the heavens
opened and the Son of Man standing at the
right hand of God!”
57 But they cried out with a loud voice
and stopped their ears, then rushed at him
with one accord.
58 They threw him out of the city and
stoned him. The witnesses placed their
garments atthe feet of a youngmannamed
Saul.
59 They stoned Stephen as he called out,
saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!”
60 He kneeled down and cried with
a loud voice, “Lord, don’t hold this sin
against them!” When he had said this, he
fell asleep.