Acts 7:32-59

³²I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob. And Moses, shaking with fear, kept his eyes from looking at it.

³³And the Lord said, Take off the shoes from your feet, for the place where you are is holy.

³⁴Truly, I have seen the sorrows of my people in Egypt, and their cries have come to my ears, and I have come down to make them free: and now, come, I will send you to Egypt.

³⁵This Moses, whom they would not have, saying, Who made you a ruler and a judge? him God sent to be a ruler and a saviour, by the hand of the angel whom he saw in the thorn-tree.

³⁶This man took them out, having done wonders and signs in Egypt and in the Red Sea and in the waste land, for forty years.

³⁷This is the same Moses, who said to the children of Israel, God will give you a prophet from among your brothers, like me.

³⁸This is the man who was in the church in the waste land with the angel who was talking to him in Sinai, and with our fathers; and to him were given the living words of God, so that he might give them to you.

³⁹By whom our fathers would not be controlled; but they put him on one side, turning back in their hearts to Egypt,

⁴⁰And saying to Aaron, Make us gods to go before us: as for this Moses, who took us out of the land of Egypt, we have no idea what has become of him.

⁴¹And they made the image of a young ox in those days, and made an offering to it, and had joy in the work of their hands.

⁴²But God was turned from them and let them give worship to the stars of heaven, as it says in the book of the prophets, Did you make offerings to me of sheep and oxen for forty years in the waste land, O house of Israel?

⁴³And you took up the tent of Moloch and the star of the god Rephan, images which you made to give worship to them: and I will take you away, farther than Babylon.

⁴⁴Our fathers had the Tent of witness in the waste land, as God gave orders to Moses to make it after the design which he had seen.

⁴⁵Which our fathers, in their turn, took with them when, with Joshua, they came into the heritage of the nations whom God was driving out before the face of our fathers, till the time of David,

⁴⁶Who was pleasing to God; and he had a desire to make a holy tent for the God of Jacob.

⁴⁷But Solomon was the builder of his house.

⁴⁸But still, the Most High has not his resting-place in houses made with hands, as the prophet says,

⁴⁹Heaven is the seat of my power, and earth is a resting-place for my feet: what sort of house will you make for me, says the Lord, or what is my place of rest?

⁵⁰Did not my hand make all these things?

⁵¹You whose hearts are hard and whose ears are shut to me; you are ever working against the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.

⁵²Which of the prophets was not cruelly attacked by your fathers? and they put to death those who gave them the news of the coming of the Upright One; whom you have now given up and put to death;

⁵³You, to whom the law was given as it was ordered by angels, and who have not kept it.

⁵⁴Hearing these things, they were cut to the heart and moved with wrath against him.

⁵⁵But he was full of the Holy Spirit, and looking up to heaven, he saw the glory of God and Jesus at the right hand of God.

⁵⁶And he said, Now I see heaven open, and the Son of man at the right hand of God.

⁵⁷But with loud cries, and stopping their ears, they made an attack on him all together,

⁵⁸Driving him out of the town and stoning him: and the witnesses put their clothing at the feet of a young man named Saul.

⁵⁹And Stephen, while he was being stoned, made prayer to God, saying, Lord Jesus, take my spirit.