Acts 7:43-59

⁴³You accepted the tabernacle of Molech and the star of the god Rephan, and the images that you made to worship them: and I will carry you away beyond Babylon.'

⁴⁴Our fathers had the tabernacle of the testimony in the wilderness, just as God commanded when he spoke to Moses, that he should make it like the pattern that he had seen.

⁴⁵Later, our fathers, under Joshua, received the tabernacle and brought it with them when they took possession of the land. God took the land from the nations and drove them out before the face of our fathers. The tabernacle remained in the land until the time of David,

⁴⁶who found favor in the sight of God, and he asked if he might find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.

⁴⁷But it was Solomon who built the house for God.

⁴⁸However, the Most High does not live in houses made with hands, as the prophet says,

⁴⁹'Heaven is my throne, and the earth is the footstool for my feet. What kind of house can you build for me? says the Lord, or what is the place for my rest?

⁵⁰Did my hand not make all these things?'

⁵¹You people who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit; you act just as your fathers acted.

⁵²Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed the prophets who appeared in advance of the coming of the Righteous One; and you have now become the betrayers and murderers of him also,

⁵³you people who received the law that angels had established, but you did not keep it.”

⁵⁴Now when the council members heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they ground their teeth at Stephen.

⁵⁵But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up intently into heaven and saw the glory of God; and he saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

⁵⁶Stephen said, “Look, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

⁵⁷At this the council members covered their ears, and shouting out with a loud voice, altogether they rushed at him.

⁵⁸They dragged him out of the city where they began to stone him, and the witnesses laid down their outer clothing at the feet of a young man named Saul.

⁵⁹As they were stoning Stephen, he was calling out to the Lord and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”