Acts 7:32-59

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.’

³⁸All our grand-fathers followed Moses together through the desert. And God sent an angel messenger to Moses at the big hill called Sinai, to tell him the good message that has life, and then Moses told our grand-fathers that same message.

³⁹But our grand-fathers wouldn’t listen to Moses. They didn’t want him to be their leader. They just wanted to go back to Egypt.

⁴⁰So they told Aaron, ‘Make us statues of gods, and we will get them to lead us back to Egypt. We followed that Moses out from Egypt, but now he is not here. What happened to him? We don’t know.’

⁴¹So then they made a statue that looked like a baby cow. They brought money and things to it, and they had a big party to show respect to the thing they made.

⁴²So God turned away from our grand-fathers. He left them, and they showed respect to the sun and the moon and the stars. Some time later a man that told God’s messages wrote about it in God’s book. He wrote this, ‘You people of Israel, you were in the desert for 40 years, and at that time, did you bring animals to kill and give to me? No, they were not for me.

⁴³You only respected the god called Molech, and the star god called Rephan. You made statues of them and you carried things around with you to help you respect them. So listen, I will send you all away from your country, I will send you a really long way away, even past the city called Babylon.’”

⁴⁴Stephen kept on talking to them. He said, “A long time ago our grand-fathers carried God’s special tent with them through the desert. That special tent showed that God was with them all the time. You see, God talked to Moses and showed him a picture of that tent and told him the way to make it.

⁴⁵Some years later Moses died, and Joshua was their leader. He and our grand-fathers came into this country and they fought against the people that lived here. God made those people run away, and our grand-fathers got this country, and they brought that tent with them into this country, and they kept it here for a long time, until David was their boss.

⁴⁶God was good to David. And David wanted to build a ceremony house for God. He is the God that all of us Israel people respect. So David asked God to let him build that house.

⁴⁷But God stopped David and instead it was David’s son, called Solomon, that built God’s ceremony house.

⁴⁸But, you know, our great God does not live in houses that people build. You see, God got one of his men to write about that in his book. He wrote,

⁴⁹‘God says, “I fill up all of heaven. It is my big seat. And the earth is just big enough to be something for me to rest my feet on. So what kind of house will you people build for me? You can’t build a place big enough for me to live in. You see, I made everything.” ’”

⁵¹Then Stephen told them straight, he said, “You mob are just like your grand-fathers of long ago. You don’t take any notice of God. You will not listen to him or do anything he says. You will not do anything the Holy Spirit tells you to do.

⁵²God sent men to your grand-fathers to tell them his messages but they beat up God’s men. He got some to say that God will send his really good man to us, but they even killed those messengers from God. Then that really good man came to us, and you mob told the people to kill him. You were the ones that murdered him.

⁵³You see, even though God sent his angel messengers to your grand-fathers to give you God’s law, you don’t listen, and you will not do anything it says.”

⁵⁴The Jewish council men heard Stephen say this and they got really angry. They were so angry they were grinding their teeth.

⁵⁵But the Holy Spirit controlled Stephen. He looked up into the sky and he saw God there, shining very bright, and he saw Jesus standing at God’s right side.

⁵⁶Stephen said, “Look, I can see into heaven. Its door is open, and I can see God’s special man there in heaven. He is standing at God’s right side.”

⁵⁷The Jewish council men heard this and they yelled out really loud. Then they covered their ears so they couldn’t hear Stephen. They jumped up quick and grabbed him.

⁵⁸Then they dragged Stephen outside the city and started throwing big stones at him to kill him. And the men that told lies about Stephen took off their coats and gave them to a young man to look after. His name was Saul.

⁵⁹Those men kept hitting Stephen with big stones. Then he called out, “Jesus, my leader, let my spirit come to be with you now.”