Acts 7:32-59

³²‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.’ Moses shook with fear and didn't dare look up.

³³The Lord told him, ‘Take off your sandals, because where you are standing is holy ground.

³⁴I have closely observed the suffering of my people in Egypt, and I have heard their groans. I have come down to rescue them. Now come over here, for I'm sending you to Egypt.’

³⁵This was the same Moses that the people had rejected when they said, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us?’ God sent him to be both a ruler and a liberator, by means of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.

³⁶Moses led them out after performing miraculous signs in Egypt, and in the Red Sea, and continued to do so in the desert for forty years.

³⁷This is the same Moses who promised the Israelites, ‘God will send you a prophet like me from among your people.’

³⁸Moses was with God's assembled people in the desert when the angel spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and there with our forefathers he received God's living word to give to us.

³⁹He was the one our fathers wouldn't listen to. They rejected him and decided to return to Egypt.

⁴⁰They told Aaron, ‘Make gods for us to lead us, because we don't know what's happened to this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt.’

⁴¹Then they made an idol in the shape of a calf, sacrificed to it, and celebrated what they themselves had made!

⁴²So God gave up on them. He left them to their worship of the stars in the sky. This is what the prophets wrote, ‘Were you giving offerings or making sacrifices to me during the forty years in the desert, you Israelites?

⁴³No, you carried the Tabernacle of the god Moloch and the image of the god Rephan's star, images that you made so you could worship them. So I will banish you in exile beyond Babylon.’

⁴⁴Our ancestors had the Tabernacle of Testimony in the desert. God had told Moses how he should make it following the blueprint he had seen.

⁴⁵Later on, our forefathers carried it with them when they went in with Joshua to occupy the land taken from the nations the Lord drove out before them. It stayed there until the time of David.

⁴⁶David found favor with God and asked to make a more permanent home for the God of Jacob.

⁴⁷But it was Solomon who built a Temple for him.

⁴⁸Of course the Almighty doesn't live in temples we make. As the prophet said,

⁴⁹‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth the place I put my feet. What kind of dwelling could you build for me?’ the Lord asks. ‘What bed could you make for me to rest in?

⁵⁰Didn't I make everything?’

⁵¹You arrogant, hard-hearted people! You never listen! You always fight against the Holy Spirit! You act just like your fathers did!

⁵²Was there ever a prophet your fathers didn't persecute? They killed those who prophesied about the coming of the one who is truly good and right. He is the one you betrayed and murdered—

⁵³you who received the law by means of the angels, but refused to keep it.”

⁵⁴When they heard this, the council members became mad with rage, and snarled at him, grinding their teeth.

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

⁵⁶“Look,” he said, “I see heaven open, and the Son of Man standing at God's right hand.”

⁵⁷But they held their hands over their ears and shouted as loudly as they could. They rushed together at him,

⁵⁸dragged him out of the city, and began to stone him. His accusers laid their coats down beside a young man called Saul.

⁵⁹As they went on stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”