Acts 7:32-60

³²‘I am the God whom your ancestors worshipped. I am the God that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob worship.’ Moses was so afraid that he began to shake. He was afraid to look at the bush any longer.

³³Then the Lord God said to him, ‘Take your sandals off to show that you(sg) revere me. Because I am here, the place where you are standing is holy/sacred.

³⁴I have surely seen how the people of Egypt are continually causing my people to suffer. I have heard my people when they groan because those people continually oppress them. So I have come down to rescue them from Egypt. Now get ready, because I am going to send you back to Egypt to do that.’ ”

³⁵“This Moses is the one who had tried to help our Israeli people, but whom they rejected by saying, ‘No one RHQ appointed you to rule and judge us!’ Moses is the one whom God himself sent to rule them and to free them from being slaves. He is the one whom an angel in the bush commanded to do that.

³⁶Moses is the one who led our ancestors out from Egypt. He did many kinds of miracles in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and during the forty years that the Israelite people lived in the desert.

³⁷This Moses is the one who said to the Israelite people, ‘God will appoint a prophet for you from among your own people. He will speak words from God, just like I speak his words to you.’

³⁸This man Moses was our people's leader when they gathered together in the desert. It is Moses to whom God sent the angel on Mount Sinai to give him our laws, and he was the one who told our other ancestors what the angel had said. He was the one who received from God words that tell us how to live eternally, and Moses passed them on to us.”

³⁹“ However, our ancestors did not want to obey Moses. Instead, while he was still on the mountain, they rejected him as their leader and decided that they wanted to return to Egypt.

⁴⁰So they told his older brother Aaron, ‘Make idols for us who will be our gods to lead us back to Egypt! As for that fellow Moses who led us out of Egypt we (exc) do not know what has happened to him!’

⁴¹So, they made out of gold an image that looked like a calf. Then they sacrificed animals and offered other things to honor that idol, and they sang and danced to honor the idol that they themselves had made.

⁴²So God rejected them. He abandoned them to worship the sun, moon and stars in the sky. This agrees with the words that one of the prophets wrote that God said, You Israelite people MTY, when you repeatedly killed animals and offered them as sacrifices during those forty years that you were in the desert, ◄you most certainly were not offering them to me!/what makes you think that you were offering them to me?► RHQ

⁴³On the contrary, you carried with you from place to place the tent that contained the idol representing the god Molech that you worshipped. You also carried with you the image of the star called Rephan. Those were idols that you had made, and you worshipped them instead of me. So I will cause you to be taken away { people to take you} from your own country. You will be taken { They will take you} far from your homes to regions even farther than Babylon.”

⁴⁴“While our ancestors were in the desert, they worshipped God at the tent that showed that he was there with them. They had made the tent exactly like God had commanded Moses to make it. It was exactly like the model that Moses had seen when he was up on the mountain.

⁴⁵Later on, other ancestors of ours carried that tent with them when Joshua led them into this land. That was during the time that they took this land for themselves, when God forced the people who previously lived here to leave. So the Israelis were able to possess this land. The tent remained in this land and was still here when King David ruled.

⁴⁶David pleased God, and he asked God to let him build a house where he and all of our Israeli people could worship God.

⁴⁷But instead, God let David's son Solomon build a house where people could worship God.”

⁴⁸“However, we(inc) know that God is greater than everything, and he does not live in houses that people SYN have made. It is like the prophet Isaiah wrote. He wrote these words that God had spoken:

⁴⁹Heaven is ◄my throne/the place from which I rule the entire universe►, and the earth is ◄my footstool/ merely like a stool on which I may rest my feet►. I myself SYN have made everything both in heaven and on the earth. So you human beings, ◄ you really cannot build a house that would be adequate for me!/do you think you can build a house that would be appropriate for me?► RHQ You cannot RHQ make a place good enough for me to live in!”

⁵¹“You people are extremely stubborn MET, not wanting to obey God or listen MTY to him! You are exactly like your ancestors! You always resist the Holy Spirit as they did!

⁵²Your ancestors caused RHQ every prophet to suffer, including Moses. They even killed those who long ago announced that the Messiah would come, the one who always did what pleased God. And the Messiah has come! He is the one whom you recently turned over to his enemies and insisted that they kill him!

⁵³You are the people who have received God's laws. Those were laws that God caused angels to give to our ancestors. However, incredibly, you have not obeyed them!”

⁵⁴When the Jewish Council members and others there heard all that Stephen said, they became very angry. They were grinding their teeth together because they were so angry at him!

⁵⁵But the Holy Spirit completely controlled Stephen. He looked up into heaven and saw a dazzling light from God, and he saw Jesus standing at God's right side.

⁵⁶“Look,” he said, “I see heaven open, and I see the one who came from heaven standing at God's right side!”

⁵⁷When the Jewish Council members and others heard that, they shouted loudly. They put their hands over their ears so that they could not hear Stephen, and immediately they all rushed at him.

⁵⁸They dragged him outside the city of Jerusalem and started to throw stones at him. The people who were accusing him took off their outer garments in order to throw stones more easily, and they put their clothes on the ground next to a young man whose name was Saul, so that he could guard them.

⁵⁹While they continued to throw stones at Stephen, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!”

⁶⁰Then Stephen fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not punish them (OR, forgive them) LIT for this sin!” After he had said that, he died.