Acts 7:40-60 ▼

40 They said to Aar’on, Make us gods to go before us, for this very Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.

41 And they made a calf for themselves in those days and offered sacrifices to idols and were pleased with the work of their hands.

42 Then God turned and gave them up that they might worship the host of heaven as it is written in the book of the prophets, O Is’rael- ites, why have you offered me slain animals or sacrifices during the period of forty years in the wilderness?

43 Indeed you have borne the tabernacle of Mo’loch and the star of the god Rem’phan; and you have made images to worship them; therefore I will remove you beyond Bab’ylon.

44 Behold the tabernacle of the testimony of our fathers was in the wilderness just as he who spoke to Moses had commanded him to make it after the pattern which he had shown him.

45 And this very tabernacle, our fathers, together with Joshua, brought into the land which God took away from the peoples whom he drove out before them and gave it to them for an inheritance, and it was handed down until the days of David:

46 Who found favor before God and asked that he might find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.

47 But Solomon built God a house.

48 Yet the Most High did not dwell in temples made with hands for, as the prophet had said,

49 Heaven is my throne, and earth is the footstool under my feet. What kind of house will you build me? says the LORD, or Where is the place of my rest?

50 Behold, has not my hand made all these things?

51 O you stubborn and insincere in heart and hearing, you always resist the Holy Spirit: as your fathers did, so do you.

52 Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted and murdered? Especially have they slain those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One whom you betrayed and murdered.

53 You received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.

54 When they heard these things, they were enraged, and gnashed their teeth at him.

55 But he, full of faith and Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

56 And he said, Behold I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.

57 Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears and with one accord, shouted threats against Stephen.

58 And they seized him and took him outside the city and began to stone him. Those who testified against him placed their clothes under the care of a young man called Saul.

59 And they stoned Stephen as he prayed, saying, Our LORD Jesus, accept my spirit.

60 And as he knelt down, he cried with a loud voice and said, Our LORD, do not hold this sin against them. When he had said this, he passed away.