[an error occurred while processing this directive] | New Living Translation |
1[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 1Then the high priest asked Stephen, “Are these accusations true?” |
2[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 2This was Stephen’s reply: “Brothers and fathers, listen to me. Our glorious God appeared to our ancestor Abraham in Mesopotamia before he settled in Haran. |
3[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 3God told him, ‘Leave your native land and your relatives, and come into the land that I will show you.’ |
4[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 4So Abraham left the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran until his father died. Then God brought him here to the land where you now live. |
5[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 5“But God gave him no inheritance here, not even one square foot of land. God did promise, however, that eventually the whole land would belong to Abraham and his descendants—even though he had no children yet. |
6[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 6God also told him that his descendants would live in a foreign land, where they would be oppressed as slaves for 400 years. |
7[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 7‘But I will punish the nation that enslaves them,’ God said, ‘and in the end they will come out and worship me here in this place.’ |
8[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 8“God also gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision at that time. So when Abraham became the father of Isaac, he circumcised him on the eighth day. And the practice was continued when Isaac became the father of Jacob, and when Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs of the Israelite nation. |
9[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 9“These patriarchs were jealous of their brother Joseph, and they sold him to be a slave in Egypt. But God was with him |
10[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 10and rescued him from all his troubles. And God gave him favor before Pharaoh, king of Egypt. God also gave Joseph unusual wisdom, so that Pharaoh appointed him governor over all of Egypt and put him in charge of the palace. |
11[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 11“But a famine came upon Egypt and Canaan. There was great misery, and our ancestors ran out of food. |
12[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 12Jacob heard that there was still grain in Egypt, so he sent his sons—our ancestors—to buy some. |
13[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 13The second time they went, Joseph revealed his identity to his brothers, and they were introduced to Pharaoh. |
14[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 14Then Joseph sent for his father, Jacob, and all his relatives to come to Egypt, seventy-five persons in all. |
15[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 15So Jacob went to Egypt. He died there, as did our ancestors. |
16[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 16Their bodies were taken to Shechem and buried in the tomb Abraham had bought for a certain price from Hamor’s sons in Shechem. |
17[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 17“As the time drew near when God would fulfill his promise to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt greatly increased. |
18[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 18But then a new king came to the throne of Egypt who knew nothing about Joseph. |
19[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 19This king exploited our people and oppressed them, forcing parents to abandon their newborn babies so they would die. |
20[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 20“At that time Moses was born—a beautiful child in God’s eyes. His parents cared for him at home for three months. |
21[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 21When they had to abandon him, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and raised him as her own son. |
22[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 22Moses was taught all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was powerful in both speech and action. |
23[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 23“One day when Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his relatives, the people of Israel. |
24[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 24He saw an Egyptian mistreating an Israelite. So Moses came to the man’s defense and avenged him, killing the Egyptian. |
25[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 25Moses assumed his fellow Israelites would realize that God had sent him to rescue them, but they didn’t. |
26[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 26“The next day he visited them again and saw two men of Israel fighting. He tried to be a peacemaker. ‘Men,’ he said, ‘you are brothers. Why are you fighting each other?’ |
27[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 27“But the man in the wrong pushed Moses aside. ‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us?’ he asked. |
28[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 28‘Are you going to kill me as you killed that Egyptian yesterday?’ |
29[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 29When Moses heard that, he fled the country and lived as a foreigner in the land of Midian. There his two sons were born. |
30[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 30“Forty years later, in the desert near Mount Sinai, an angel appeared to Moses 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 went to take a closer look, the voice of the LORD called out to him, |
32[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 32‘I am the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ Moses shook with terror and did not dare to look. |
33[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 33“Then the LORD said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, for you are standing on 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 groans and have come down to rescue them. Now go, for I am sending you back to Egypt.’ |
35[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 35“So God sent back the same man his people had previously rejected when they demanded, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us?’ Through the angel who appeared to him in the burning bush, God sent Moses to be their ruler and savior. |
36[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 36And by means of many wonders and miraculous signs, he led them out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, and through the wilderness for forty years. |
37[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 37“Moses himself told the people of Israel, ‘God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from among your own people.’ |
38[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 38Moses was with our ancestors, the assembly of God’s people in the wilderness, when the angel spoke to him at Mount Sinai. And there Moses received life-giving words to pass on to us. |
39[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 39“But our ancestors refused to listen to Moses. They rejected him and wanted to return to Egypt. |
40[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 40They told Aaron, ‘Make us some gods who can lead us, for we don’t know what has become of this Moses, who brought us out of Egypt.’ |
41[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 41So they made an idol shaped like a calf, and they sacrificed to it and celebrated over this thing they had made. |
42[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 42Then God turned away from them and abandoned them to serve the stars of heaven as their gods! In the book of the prophets it is written, ‘Was it to me you were bringing sacrifices and offerings during those forty years in the wilderness, Israel? |
43[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 43No, you carried your pagan gods— the shrine of Molech, the star of your god Rephan, and the images you made to worship them. So I will send you into exile as far away as Babylon.’ |
44[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 44“Our ancestors carried the Tabernacle with them through the wilderness. It was constructed according to the plan God had shown to Moses. |
45[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 45Years later, when Joshua led our ancestors in battle against the nations that God drove out of this land, the Tabernacle was taken with them into their new territory. And it stayed there until the time of King David. |
46[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 46“David found favor with God and asked for the privilege of building a permanent Temple for the God of Jacob. |
47[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 47But it was Solomon who actually built it. |
48[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 48However, the Most High doesn’t live in temples made by human hands. As the prophet says, |
49[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 49‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Could you build me a temple as good as that?’ asks the LORD. ‘Could you build me such a resting place? |
50[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 50Didn’t my hands make both heaven and earth?’ |
51[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 51“You stubborn people! You are heathen at heart and deaf to the truth. Must you forever resist the Holy Spirit? That’s what your ancestors did, and so do you! |
52[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 52Name one prophet your ancestors didn’t persecute! They even killed the ones who predicted the coming of the Righteous One—the Messiah whom you betrayed and murdered. |
53[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 53You deliberately disobeyed God’s law, even though you received it from the hands of angels.” |
54[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 54The Jewish leaders were infuriated by Stephen’s accusation, and they shook their fists at him in rage. |
55[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 55But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of God, and he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand. |
56[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 56And he told them, “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand!” |
57[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 57Then they put their hands over their ears and began shouting. They rushed at him |
58[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 58and dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. His accusers took off their coats and laid them at the feet of a young man named Saul. |
59[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 59As they stoned him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” |
60[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 60He fell to his knees, shouting, “Lord, don’t charge them with this sin!” And with that, he died. |
[an error occurred while processing this directive] | Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. |
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