| [an error occurred while processing this directive] | Christian Standard Bible |
| 1[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 1"Are these things true?" the high priest asked. |
| 2[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 2"Brothers and fathers," he replied, "listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he settled in Haran, |
| 3[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 3and said to him: Leave your country and relatives, and come to the land that I will show you. |
| 4[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 4"Then he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. From there, after his father died, God had him move to this land in which you are now living. |
| 5[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 5He didn't give him an inheritance in it--not even a foot of ground--but he promised to give it to him as a possession, and to his descendants after him, even though he was childless. |
| 6[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 6God spoke in this way: His descendants would be strangers in a foreign country, and they would enslave and oppress them for four hundred years. |
| 7[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 7I will judge the nation that they will serve as slaves, God said. After this, they will come out and worship me in this place. |
| 8[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 8And so he gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision. After this, he fathered Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day. Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs. |
| 9[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 9"The patriarchs became jealous of Joseph and sold him into Egypt, but God was with him |
| 10[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 10and rescued him out of all his troubles. He gave him favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who appointed him ruler over Egypt and over his whole household. |
| 11[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 11Now a famine and great suffering came over all of Egypt and Canaan, and our ancestors could find no food. |
| 12[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 12When Jacob heard there was grain in Egypt, he sent our ancestors there the first time. |
| 13[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 13The second time, Joseph revealed himself to his brothers, and Joseph's family became known to Pharaoh. |
| 14[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 14Joseph invited his father Jacob and all his relatives, seventy-five people in all, |
| 15[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 15and Jacob went down to Egypt. He and our ancestors died there, |
| 16[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 16were carried back to Shechem, and were placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem. |
| 17[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 17"As the time was approaching to fulfill the promise that God had made to Abraham, the people flourished and multiplied in Egypt |
| 18[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 18until a different king who did not know Joseph ruled over Egypt. |
| 19[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 19He dealt deceitfully with our race and oppressed our ancestors by making them abandon their infants outside so that they wouldn't survive. |
| 20[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 20At this time Moses was born, and he was beautiful in God's sight. He was cared for in his father's home for three months. |
| 21[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 21When he was put outside, Pharaoh's daughter adopted and raised him as her own son. |
| 22[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 22So Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in his speech and actions. |
| 23[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 23"When he was forty years old, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites. |
| 24[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 24When he saw one of them being mistreated, he came to his rescue and avenged the oppressed man by striking down the Egyptian. |
| 25[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 25He assumed his people would understand that God would give them deliverance through him, but they did not understand. |
| 26[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 26The next day he showed up while they were fighting and tried to reconcile them peacefully, saying, 'Men, you are brothers. Why are you mistreating each other?' |
| 27[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 27"But the one who was mistreating his neighbor pushed Moses aside, saying: Who appointed you a ruler and a judge over us? |
| 28[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 28Do you want to kill me, the same way you killed the Egyptian yesterday? |
| 29[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 29"When he heard this, Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons. |
| 30[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 30After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning bush. |
| 31[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 31When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight. As he was approaching to look at it, the voice of the Lord came: |
| 32[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 32I am the God of your ancestors--the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. Moses began to tremble and did not dare to look. |
| 33[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 33"The Lord said to him: Take off the sandals from your feet, because the place where you are standing is holy ground. |
| 34[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 34I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt; I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. And now, come, I will send you to Egypt. |
| 35[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 35"This Moses, whom they rejected when they said, Who appointed you a ruler and a judge? --this one God sent as a ruler and a deliverer through the angel who appeared to him in the bush. |
| 36[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 36This man led them out and performed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years. |
| 37[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 37"This is the Moses who said to the Israelites: God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers and sisters. |
| 38[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 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 ancestors. He received living oracles to give to us. |
| 39[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 39Our ancestors were unwilling to obey him. Instead, they pushed him aside, and in their hearts turned back to Egypt. |
| 40[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 40They told Aaron: Make us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we don't know what's happened to him. |
| 41[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 41They even made a calf in those days, offered sacrifice to the idol, and were celebrating what their hands had made. |
| 42[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 42God turned away and gave them up to worship the stars of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: House of Israel, did you bring me offerings and sacrifices for forty years in the wilderness? |
| 43[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 43You took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan, the images that you made to worship. So I will send you into exile beyond Babylon. |
| 44[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 44"Our ancestors had the tabernacle of the testimony in the wilderness, just as he who spoke to Moses commanded him to make it according to the pattern he had seen. |
| 45[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 45Our ancestors in turn received it and with Joshua brought it in when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before them, until the days of David. |
| 46[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 46He found favor in God's sight and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. |
| 47[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 47It was Solomon, rather, who built him a house, |
| 48[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 48but the Most High does not dwell in sanctuaries made with hands, as the prophet says: |
| 49[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 49Heaven is my throne, and the earth my footstool. What sort of house will you build for me? says the Lord, or what will be my resting place? |
| 50[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 50Did not my hand make all these things? |
| 51[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 51"You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are always resisting the Holy Spirit. As your ancestors did, you do also. |
| 52[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 52Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They even killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become. |
| 53[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 53You received the law under the direction of angels and yet have not kept it." |
| 54[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 54When they heard these things, they were enraged and gnashed their teeth at him. |
| 55[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 55Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven. He saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. |
| 56[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 56He said, "Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!" |
| 57[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 57They yelled at the top of their voices, covered their ears, and together rushed against him. |
| 58[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 58They dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. And the witnesses laid their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. |
| 59[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 59While they were stoning Stephen, he called out: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!" |
| 60[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 60He knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them!" And after saying this, he died. |
| [an error occurred while processing this directive] | The Christian Standard Bible. Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. |
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