ACTS OF THE
APOSTLES Chapter 7 (GNB)
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7:1
The High Priest asked Stephen, "Is this true?"
7:2
Stephen answered, "Brothers and fathers, listen
to me! Before our ancestor Abraham had gone to live in Haran, the God of glory
appeared to him in Mesopotamia
7:3
and said to him, 'Leave your family and country and go to the land that I will
show you.'
7:4
And so he left his country and went to live in Haran. After Abraham's father
died, God made him move to this land where you now live.
7:5
God did not then give Abraham any part of it as his own, not even a square foot
of ground, but God promised to give it to him, and that it would belong to him
and to his descendants. At the time God made this promise, Abraham had no
children.
7:6
This is what God said to him: 'Your descendants will live in a foreign country,
where they will be slaves and will be badly treated for four hundred years.
7:7
But I will pass judgment on the people that they will serve, and afterward your
descendants will come out of that country and will worship me in this place.'
7:8
Then God gave to Abraham the ceremony of circumcision as a sign of the
covenant. So Abraham circumcised Isaac a week after he was born; Isaac
circumcised his son Jacob, and Jacob circumcised his twelve sons, the famous
ancestors of our race.
7:9
"Jacob's sons became jealous of their brother Joseph and sold him to be a
slave in Egypt. But God was with him
7:10
and brought him safely through all his troubles. When Joseph appeared before
the king of Egypt, God gave him a pleasing manner and wisdom, and the king made
Joseph governor over the country and the royal household.
7:11
Then there was a famine all over Egypt and Canaan, which caused much suffering.
Our ancestors could not find any food,
7:12
and when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent his sons, our
ancestors, on their first visit there.
7:13
On the second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and the king of
Egypt came to know about Joseph's family.
7:14
So Joseph sent a message to his father Jacob, telling him and the whole family,
seventy-five people in all, to come to Egypt.
7:15
Then Jacob went to Egypt, where he and his sons died.
7:16
Their bodies were taken to Shechem, where they were
buried in the grave which Abraham had bought from the clan of Hamor for a sum of money.
7:17
"When the time drew near for God to keep the promise he had made to
Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt had grown much larger.
7:18
At last a king who did not know about Joseph began to rule in Egypt.
7:19
He tricked our ancestors and was cruel to them, forcing them to put their
babies out of their homes, so that they would die.
7:20
It was at this time that Moses was born, a very beautiful child. He was cared
for at home for three months,
7:21
and when he was put out of his home, the king's daughter adopted him and
brought him up as her own son.
7:22
He was taught all the wisdom of the Egyptians and became a great man in words
and deeds.
7:23
"When Moses was forty years old, he decided to find out how his fellow
Israelites were being treated.
7:24
He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his help and
took revenge on the Egyptian by killing him.
7:25
(He thought that his own people would understand that God was going to use him
to set them free, but they did not understand.)
7:26
The next day he saw two Israelites fighting, and he tried to make peace between
them. 'Listen, men,' he said, 'you are fellow Israelites; why are you fighting
like this?'
7:27
But the one who was mistreating the other pushed Moses aside. 'Who made you
ruler and judge over us?' he asked.
7:28
'Do you want to kill me, just as you killed that Egyptian yesterday?'
7:29
When Moses heard this, he fled from Egypt and went to live in the land of Midian. There he had two sons.
7:30
"After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of
a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai.
7:31
Moses was amazed by what he saw, and went near the bush to get a better look.
But he heard the Lord's voice:
7:32
'I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.' Moses
trembled with fear and dared not look.
7:33
The Lord said to him, 'Take your sandals off, for the place where you are
standing is holy ground.
7:34
I have seen the cruel suffering of my people in Egypt. I have heard their
groans, and I have come down to set them free. Come now; I will send you to
Egypt.'
7:35
"Moses is the one who was rejected by the people of Israel. 'Who made you ruler and judge over us?' they asked. He is
the one whom God sent to rule the people and set them free with the help of the
angel who appeared to him in the burning bush.
7:36
He led the people out of Egypt, performing miracles and wonders in Egypt and at
the Red Sea and for forty years in the desert.
7:37
Moses is the one who said to the people of Israel, 'God will send you a
prophet, just as he sent me, and he will be one of your own people.'
7:38
He is the one who was with the people of Israel assembled in the desert; he was
there with our ancestors and with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai,
and he received God's living messages to pass on to us.
7:39 "But our ancestors refused to obey him;
they pushed him aside and wished that they could go back to Egypt.
7:40
So they said to Aaron, 'Make us some gods who will lead us. We do not know what
has happened to that man Moses, who brought us out of Egypt.'
7:41
It was then that they made an idol in the shape of a bull, offered sacrifice to
it, and had a feast in honor of what they themselves
had made.
7:42 So God turned away from them and gave them over
to worship the stars of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets:
'People of Israel!
It was not to me that you slaughtered and sacrificed animals for forty years in
the desert.
7:43
It was the tent of the god Molech that you carried,
and the image of Rephan, your star god; they were
idols that you had made to worship. And so I will send you into exile beyond
Babylon.'
7:44
"Our ancestors had the Tent of God's presence with them in the desert. It
had been made as God had told Moses to make it,
according to the pattern that Moses had been shown.
7:45
Later on, our ancestors who received the tent from their fathers carried it
with them when they went with Joshua and took over the land from the nations
that God drove out as they advanced. And it stayed there until the time of
David.
7:46
He won God's favor and asked God to allow him to
provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.
7:47
But it was Solomon who built him a house.
7:48
"But the Most High God does not live in houses built by human hands; as
the prophet says,
7:49
'Heaven is my throne, says the Lord, and the earth is my footstool. What kind
of house would you build for me? Where is the place for me to live in?
7:50
Did not I myself make all these things?'
7:51
"How stubborn you are!" Stephen went on to say. "How heathen
your hearts, how deaf you are to God's message! You are just like your
ancestors: you too have always resisted the Holy Spirit!
7:52
Was there any prophet that your ancestors did not persecute? They killed God's
messengers, who long ago announced the coming of his righteous Servant. And now
you have betrayed and murdered him.
7:53
You are the ones who received God's law, that was handed down by angels---yet
you have not obeyed it!"
7:54
As the members of the Council listened to Stephen,
they became furious and ground their teeth at him in anger.
7:55
But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw God's glory
and Jesus standing at the right side of God.
7:56
"Look!" he said. "I see heaven opened and the Son of Man
standing at the right side of God!"
7:57
With a loud cry the Council members covered their ears with their hands. Then
they all rushed at him at once,
7:58
threw him out of the city, and stoned him. The witnesses left their cloaks in
the care of a young man named Saul.
7:59
They kept on stoning Stephen as he called out to the Lord, "Lord Jesus,
receive my spirit!"
7:60
He knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, "Lord! Do not remember this
sin against them!" He said this and died.
CHAPTER ENDS