Acts 7:25-37

²⁵Moses reckoned, ‘Now my people will understand about me, and God will use me to save them.’ But they didn’t understand anything about Moses.

²⁶The next day Moses saw 2 of his own people fighting and he tried to get them to stop fighting. He said, ‘You 2 men, you are both family. Why do you hit each other?’

²⁷But the man that started the fight pushed Moses away. He said, ‘Nobody said you can be our boss or our judge.

²⁸Are you going to kill me like you killed that Egyptian man yesterday?’

²⁹Moses heard that man’s words and he got really frightened. He thought, ‘Hey, everyone knows that I killed that man. Now I will get big trouble.’ So he ran away from Egypt and went to live in the country called Midian. He didn’t belong to that country, but he got married there and had 2 sons.

³⁰Moses stayed in Midian country for 40 years. Then one day he was in the desert place near the big hill called Sinai, and God sent one of his angel messengers to him there. Moses saw a little tree that was burning with flames of fire.

³¹It kept on burning all the time, and Moses was really surprised. He thought, ‘How come?’ He went closer to have a good look at it. Then he heard God talk to him from that fire. God said,

³²‘I am the God of your grand-fathers, called Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I am their God.’ Moses was so frightened that he started shaking. He was too frightened to look at that little tree any more.

³³Then God said to him, ‘Moses, take off your shoes. The ground you are standing on is my special ground.

³⁴Listen, I saw the bosses of Egypt hitting my people. I heard my people crying and groaning, and now I’m going to save them. So now, Moses, you go back to Egypt. I’m sending you back there to save them.’”

³⁵Stephen kept on talking to them. He said, “You see, God’s people didn’t listen to Moses before. They said, ‘Nobody said you can be our boss or our judge.’ But later God sent Moses back to save them, and to be their boss. And God sent his angel messenger to help Moses, the same angel that made that little tree keep burning with fire.

³⁶So all our people followed Moses out of Egypt. He did powerful things in Egypt for them to see, and again when they came to the water called the Red Sea he did a powerful thing to let them cross it, and he did great things for them while they walked around in the desert for 40 years.

³⁷That same man, Moses, said to the people of Israel, ‘God will get one of your own people, and send him to tell you his message. He will be like me.’