Acts 7
He Saw the Heavens Opened, and They Stopped Their Ears
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Are These Things So?
7:1The high priest said, “Are these things so?”
7:2He answered, “Men, brothers and fathers, listen. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,
7:3and said to him, ‘Leave your land and your relatives, and come to the land I will show you.’
7:4Then he left the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. From there, after his father died, God moved him to this land in which you now live.
7:5He gave him no inheritance in it, not even a footstep’s space, but promised to give it to him as a possession and to his seed after him, although he had no child.
7:6God spoke in this way: his seed would live as strangers in a foreign land, and they would enslave and mistreat them for four hundred years.
7:7‘But I will judge the nation they serve as slaves,’ God said, ‘and after these things they will come out and worship Me in this place.’
7:8He gave him the covenant of circumcision. Thus Abraham begat Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day; Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob the twelve patriarchs.
Joseph in Egypt
7:9The patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt. But God was with him,
7:10rescued him from all his afflictions, and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who appointed him ruler over Egypt and his whole household.
7:11Famine came upon all Egypt and Canaan, with great affliction, and our fathers could find no provisions.
7:12When Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our fathers there the first time.
7:13On the second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to Pharaoh.
7:14Joseph sent and summoned his father Jacob and all his relatives, seventy-five persons in all.
7:15Jacob went down to Egypt, and he and our fathers died.
7:16They were brought over to Shechem and placed in the tomb Abraham had bought for a price in silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.
The Birth and Flight of Moses
7:17As the time of the promise God had declared to Abraham drew near, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt,
7:18until another king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.
7:19He dealt craftily with our people and mistreated the fathers, forcing them to expose their infants so that they would not be kept alive.
7:20At that time Moses was born, and he was beautiful before God. He was brought up for three months in his father’s house.
7:21When he was exposed, Pharaoh’s daughter took him up and brought him up as her own son.
7:22Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in his words and deeds.
7:23When he reached the age of forty, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the sons of Israel.
7:24Seeing one of them being wronged, he defended him and avenged the oppressed man by striking down the Egyptian.
7:25He supposed his brothers understood that God was giving them deliverance through his hand, but they did not understand.
7:26The next day he came upon them as they were fighting and tried to reconcile them in peace, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why are you wronging one another?’
7:27But the one wronging his neighbor pushed him away and said, ‘Who appointed you ruler and judge over us?
7:28Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’
7:29At this saying Moses fled and became a stranger in the land of Midian, where he fathered two sons.
The Burning Bush
7:30When forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning bush.
7:31When Moses saw it, he marveled at the sight. As he approached to examine it, the Lord’s voice came:
7:32‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.’ Moses trembled and did not dare to look closely.
7:33The Lord said to him, ‘Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground.
7:34I have indeed seen the mistreatment of My people in Egypt and heard their groaning, and I have come down to rescue them. Now come, let Me send you to Egypt.’
Moses Rejected by the Fathers
7:35This Moses, whom they denied, saying, ‘Who appointed you ruler and judge?’—God has sent this very man as both ruler and redeemer, with the help of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.
7:36He led them out, doing wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years.
7:37This is the Moses who said to the sons of Israel, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers.’
7:38He is the one who was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our fathers. He received living oracles to give to us,
7:39but our fathers were unwilling to obey him. They pushed him away and turned in their hearts toward Egypt,
7:40saying to Aaron, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.’
7:41They made a calf in those days, offered sacrifice to the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their hands.
7:42But God turned away and handed them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: ‘Did you offer Me slaughtered victims and sacrifices for forty years in the wilderness, house of Israel?
7:43You took up the tent of Moloch and the star of the god Raiphan, the images you made to worship them. And I will deport you beyond Babylon.’
The Tent and the House
7:44Our fathers had the Tent of Testimony in the wilderness, as the One who spoke to Moses directed him to make it according to the pattern he had seen.
7:45Our fathers in their turn received it and brought it in with Joshua when they took possession of the nations’ land, whose people God drove out before our fathers. It remained until the days of David,
7:46who found favor before God and asked to find a dwelling for the God of Jacob.
7:47But Solomon built Him a house.
7:48Yet the Most High does not dwell in things made by hands, as the prophet says:
7:49‘Heaven is My throne, and the earth the footstool of My feet. What kind of house will you build for Me, says the Lord, or what place is there for My rest?
7:50Did not My hand make all these things?’
Resisting the Holy Spirit
7:51You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in hearts and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.
7:52Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become—
7:53you who received the law through the ordinances of angels and did not keep it.”
Stephen Sees the Glory of God
7:54When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart with rage and ground their teeth at him.
7:55But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at God’s right hand.
7:56He said, “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at God’s right hand.”
7:57They cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and rushed upon him together.
The Stoning of Stephen
7:58They drove him outside the city and began stoning him. The witnesses laid their garments at the feet of a young man called Saul.
7:59They stoned Stephen as he called out, saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
7:60Kneeling down, he cried with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” After saying this, he fell asleep.
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Saints Translation · Liturgical reading edition · V2 · working draft awaiting specialist review.