Acts of the Apostles 7

¹ The high priest asked, ‘Is this true?’

² He replied, ‘My brothers, my fathers, listen to what I have to say. The God of glory appeared to our ancestor Abraham, while he was in Mesopotamia before settling in Haran,

³ and said to him, “Leave your country and your family and go to the land I will show you”.[*a]

⁴ So he left Chaldaea and settled in Haran; and after his father died God made him leave Haran and come to this land where you are living today.

⁵ God did not give him a single square foot of this land to call his own, yet he promised to give it to him and after him to his descendants, childless[*b] though he was.

⁶ The actual words God used when he spoke to him are that his descendants would be exiles in a foreign land, where they would be slaves and oppressed for four hundred years.

⁷ “But I will pass judgement on the nation that enslaves them” God said “and after this they will leave, and worship me in this place.”[*c]

⁸ Then he made the covenant of circumcision: so when his son Isaac was born he circumcised him on the eighth day. Isaac did the same for Jacob, and Jacob for the twelve patriarchs.

⁹ The patriarchs were jealous of Joseph and sold him into slavery in Egypt.[*d] But God was with him,[*e]

¹⁰ and rescued him from all his miseries by making him wise enough to attract the attention of Pharoah king of Egypt, who made him governor of Egypt[*f] and put him in charge of the royal household.

¹¹ Then a famine came that caused much suffering throughout Egypt and Canaan, and our ancestors could find nothing to eat.

¹² When Jacob heard that there was grain for sale in Egypt, he sent our ancestors there on a first visit,

¹³ but it was on the second that Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and told Pharaoh about his family.

¹⁴ Joseph then sent for his father Jacob and his whole family, a total of seventy-five people.

¹⁵ Jacob went down into Egypt and after he and our ancestors had died there,

¹⁶ their bodies were brought back to Shechem and buried in the tomb that Abraham had bought and paid for from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem.

¹⁷ ‘As the time drew near for God to fulfil the promise he had solemnly made to Abraham, our nation in Egypt grew larger and larger,

¹⁸ until a new king came to power in Egypt who knew nothing of[*g] Joseph.

¹⁹ He exploited our race, and ill-treated our ancestors, forcing them to expose their babies to prevent their surviving.

²⁰ It was at this period that Moses was born, a fine child and favoured by God. He was looked after for three months in his father’s house,

²¹ and after he had been exposed, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son.

²² So Moses was taught all the wisdom of the Egyptians and became a man with power both in his speech and his actions.

²³ ‘At the age of forty he decided to visit his countrymen, the sons of Israel.

²⁴ When he saw one of them being ill-treated he went to his defence and rescued the man by killing the Egyptian.

²⁵ He thought his brothers realised that through him God would liberate them, but they did not.

²⁶ The next day, when he came across some of them fighting, he tried to reconcile them. ‘Friends,’ he said ‘you are brothers; why are you hurting each other?’

²⁷ But the man who was attacking his fellow countryman pushed him aside. ‘And who appointed you’ he said ‘to be our leader and judge?

²⁸ Do you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’

²⁹ Moses fled when he heard this[*h] and he went to stay in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.

³⁰ ‘Forty years later, in the wilderness near Mount Sinai, an angel appeared to him in the flames of a bush that was on fire.

³¹ Moses was amazed by what he saw. As he went nearer to look at it the voice of the Lord was heard,

³² “I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob”. Moses trembled and did not dare to look any more.

³³ The Lord said to him, “Take off your shoes; the place where you are standing is holy ground.

³⁴ I have seen the way my people are ill-treated in Egypt, I have heard their groans, and I have come down to liberate them. So come here and let me send you into Egypt.”

³⁵ ‘It was the same Moses that they had disowned when they said, “Who appointed you to be our leader and judge?” who was now sent to be both leader and redeemer through the angel who had appeared to him in the bush.

³⁶ It was Moses who, after performing miracles and signs in Egypt, led them out across the Red Sea and through the wilderness for forty years.[*i]

³⁷ It was Moses who told the sons of Israel, “God will raise up a prophet like myself for you from among your own brothers”.[*j]

³⁸ When they held the assembly in the wilderness it was only through Moses that our ancestors could communicate with the angel who had spoken to him on Mount Sinai; it was he who was entrusted with words of life to hand on to us.

³⁹ This is the man that our ancestors refused to listen to: they pushed him aside, turned back to Egypt in their thoughts,

⁴⁰ and said to Aaron, “Make some gods to be our leaders; we do not understand what has come over this Moses who led us out of Egypt”.[*k]

⁴¹ It was then that they made a bull calf and offered sacrifice to the idol. They were perfectly happy with something they had made for themselves.

⁴² God turned away from them and abandoned them to the worship of the army of heaven,[*l] as scripture says in the book of the prophets: Did you bring me victims and sacrifices in the wilderness for all those forty years, you House of Israel?

⁴³ No, you carried the tent of Moloch on your shoulders and the star of the god Rephan, those idols that you had made to adore. So now I will exile you even further than Babylon.[*m]

⁴⁴ ‘While they were in the desert our ancestors possessed the Tent of Testimony that had been constructed according to the instructions God gave Moses, telling him to make an exact copy of the pattern[*n] he had been shown.

⁴⁵ It was handed down from one ancestor of ours to another until Joshua brought it into the country we had conquered from the nations which were driven out by God as we advanced. Here it stayed until the time of David.

⁴⁶ He won God’s favour and asked permission to have a temple built for the House of Jacob,

⁴⁷ though it was Solomon who actually built God’s house[*o] for him.

⁴⁸ Even so the Most High does not live in a house that human hands have built: for as the prophet says:

⁴⁹ With heaven my throne and earth my footstool, what house could you build me, what place could you make for my rest?

⁵⁰ Was not all this made by my hand?[*p]

⁵¹ You stubborn people, with your pagan hearts and pagan ears. You are always resisting the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do.

⁵² Can you name a single prophet your ancestors never persecuted? In the past they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, and now you have become his betrayers, his murderers.

⁵³ You who had the Law brought to you by angels are the very ones who have not kept it.’

⁵⁴ They were infuriated when they heard this, and ground their teeth at him.

⁵⁵ But Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at God’s right hand.

⁵⁶ ‘I can see heaven thrown open’ he said ‘and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’

⁵⁷ At this all the members of the council shouted out and stopped their ears with their hands; then they all rushed at him,

⁵⁸ sent him out of the city and stoned him. The witnesses[*q] put down their clothes at the feet of a young man called Saul.

⁵⁹ As they were stoning him, Stephen said in invocation, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit’.

⁶⁰ Then he knelt down and said aloud, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them’; and with these words he fell asleep.