Acts 7:5-55

⁵God didn’t give any of this country to Abraham to be his own land, not even a little bit of it. But God promised that some time later his grand-kids to come will own all of this land, even though Abraham didn’t even have any kids at that time.

⁶But God told Abraham, ‘Your grand-kids will live in a country that belongs to other people. Those people will treat your grand-kids really bad and make them work hard for no pay. They will do that for 400 years.

⁷But after that I will pay back those other people for treating your grand-kids bad. Then your grand-kids will come out from that country and they will show respect to me here in this place.’

⁸Then God promised to look after Abraham, and Abraham agreed to follow him. God told Abraham, ‘Your mob will always have to do a young man’s operation on their boys, to show that they agree with God.’ After that Abraham had a son called Isaac, and 8 days later Abraham did a young man’s operation on him. After that Isaac grew up and had a son called Jacob, and he did that operation on him too. And Jacob did the same for his 12 sons, and those 12 men became our grand-fathers of a long time ago.

⁹Joseph was one of them. His brothers were jealous of him and sold him to some people that took him to Egypt. He had to work there for no pay. But God was with Joseph there in Egypt.

¹⁰Joseph got big trouble there, but God saved him from all that trouble. God helped Joseph to think properly about everything. The big boss of Egypt was called Pharaoh. God showed Pharaoh that Joseph was really good. He made Joseph the boss over all the people in Egypt, and he made him boss over Pharaoh’s own big house.

¹¹After a long time there was a dry time for all those countries. There was no rain, so no food grew in Egypt or in Canaan, the country that our grand-fathers were living in. They had no food and they were very hungry.

¹²Then Jacob heard that there was food in Egypt. So he sent his sons to Egypt to get food. They were our grand-fathers of a long time ago. They met Joseph there but he looked so different that they didn’t know him. Then they took that food home.

¹³After that, Jacob sent them to Egypt again to get more food, and this time Joseph told them, ‘I am your brother.’ And Pharaoh heard that Joseph had some brothers.

¹⁴Then Joseph sent his brothers to get his father Jacob, and all his family, to go and live in Egypt. So all 75 of them went to Egypt.

¹⁵That’s the way Jacob and his family went to Egypt, and after that they died there.

¹⁶Later their grand-kids took their bodies back to the place called Shechem and buried them in a cave. A long time before that their grand-father Abraham bought that cave from Hamor’s family. He paid the full price for that cave.”

¹⁷Stephen said to the Jewish council men, “Remember, a long time before that God told Abraham, ‘Your family will live in Egypt for a long time.’ And when it was almost time for God to bring them back from Egypt, they had lots of kids and grand-kids till they grew into a big mob of people.

¹⁸Then, a new man became the big boss of Egypt, and he didn’t know anything about Joseph.

¹⁹That big boss tricked our family and was very hard on them. He made our mob throw their baby boys into the river to kill them.

²⁰Moses was born while that man was the big boss. Moses was a very good little baby, and his mother and father looked after him in their house for 3 months.

²¹After that they had to leave Moses out at the river, but just then the big boss’s daughter came along and found him, and she took him home and called him her own son.

²²So Moses grew up in the big boss’s family, and the Egyptian teachers taught him a lot of things. Moses became an important man. He did everything powerfully and he talked powerfully too.

²³Moses kept living in the big boss’s family until he was 40 years old, then one day he went to visit his own people, us Israel mob.

²⁴While he was there he saw an Egyptian boss beating up an Israel man. So Moses killed that Egyptian boss.

²⁵Moses reckoned, ‘Now my people will understand about me, and God will use me to save them.’ But they didn’t understand anything about Moses.

²⁶The next day Moses saw 2 of his own people fighting and he tried to get them to stop fighting. He said, ‘You 2 men, you are both family. Why do you hit each other?’

²⁷But the man that started the fight pushed Moses away. He said, ‘Nobody said you can be our boss or our judge.

²⁸Are you going to kill me like you killed that Egyptian man yesterday?’

²⁹Moses heard that man’s words and he got really frightened. He thought, ‘Hey, everyone knows that I killed that man. Now I will get big trouble.’ So he ran away from Egypt and went to live in the country called Midian. He didn’t belong to that country, but he got married there and had 2 sons.

³⁰Moses stayed in Midian country for 40 years. Then one day he was in the desert place near the big hill called Sinai, and God sent one of his angel messengers to him there. Moses saw a little tree that was burning with flames of fire.

³¹It kept on burning all the time, and Moses was really surprised. He thought, ‘How come?’ He went closer to have a good look at it. Then he heard God talk to him from that fire. God said,

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.