Acts 7
7
1And the chief priest said, ‘Are then these things so?’
2and he said, ‘Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken: The God of the glory did appear to our father Abraham, being in Mesopotamia, before his dwelling in Haran,
3and He said to him, Go forth out of thy land, and out of thy kindred, and come to a land that I shall shew thee.
4‘Then having come forth out of the land of the Chaldeans, he dwelt in Haran, and from thence, after the death of his father, He did remove him to this land wherein ye now dwell,
5and He gave him no inheritance in it, not even a footstep, and did promise to give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him — he having no child.
6‘And God spake thus, That his seed shall be sojourning in a strange land, and they shall cause it to serve, and shall do it evil four hundred years,
7and the nation whom they shall serve I will judge, said God; and after these things they shall come forth and shall do Me service in this place.
8‘And He gave to him a covenant of circumcision, and so he begat Isaac, and did circumcise him on the eighth day, and Isaac [begat] Jacob, and Jacob — the twelve patriarchs;
9and the patriarchs, having been moved with jealousy, sold Joseph to Egypt, and God was with him,
10and did deliver him out of all his tribulations, and gave him favour and wisdom before Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he did set him — governor over Egypt and all his house.
11‘And there came a dearth upon all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and great tribulation, and our fathers were not finding sustenance,
12and Jacob having heard that there was corn in Egypt, sent forth our fathers a first time;
13and at the second time was Joseph made known to his brethren, and Joseph's kindred became manifest to Pharaoh,
14and Joseph having sent, did call for his father Jacob, and all his kindred — with seventy and five souls —
15and Jacob went down to Egypt, and died, himself and our fathers,
16and they were carried over into Sychem, and were laid in the tomb that Abraham bought for a price in money from the sons of Emmor, of Sychem.
17‘And according as the time of the promise was drawing nigh, which God did swear to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt,
18till another king rose, who had not known Joseph;
19this one, having dealt subtilely with our kindred, did evil to our fathers, causing to expose their babes, that they might not live;
20in which time Moses was born, and he was fair to God, and he was brought up three months in the house of his father;
21and he having been exposed, the daughter of Pharaoh took him up, and did rear him to herself for a son;
22and Moses was taught in all wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was powerful in words and in works.
23‘And when forty years were fulfilled to him, it came upon his heart to look after his brethren, the sons of Israel;
24and having seen a certain one suffering injustice, he did defend, and did justice to the oppressed, having smitten the Egyptian;
25and he was supposing his brethren to understand that God through his hand doth give salvation; and they did not understand.
26‘On the succeeding day, also, he shewed himself to them as they are striving, and urged them to peace, saying, Men, brethren are ye, wherefore do ye injustice to one another?
27and he who is doing injustice to the neighbour, did thrust him away, saying, Who set thee a ruler and a judge over us?
28to kill me dost thou wish, as thou didst kill yesterday the Egyptian?
29‘And Moses fled at this word, and became a sojourner in the land of Midian, where he begat two sons,
30and forty years having been fulfilled, there appeared to him in the wilderness of mount Sinai a messenger of the Lord, in a flame of fire of a bush,
31and Moses having seen did wonder at the sight; and he drawing near to behold, there came a voice of the Lord unto him,
32I [am] the God of thy fathers; the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. ‘And Moses having become terrified, durst not behold,
33and the Lord said to him, Loose the sandal of thy feet, for the place in which thou hast stood is holy ground;
34seeing I have seen the affliction of My people that [is] in Egypt, and their groaning I did hear, and came down to deliver them; and now come, I will send thee to Egypt.
35‘This Moses, whom they did refuse, saying, Who did set thee a ruler and a judge? this one God a ruler and a redeemer did send, in the hand of a messenger who appeared to him in the bush;
36this one did bring them forth, having done wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness forty years;
37this is the Moses who did say to the sons of Israel: A prophet to you shall the Lord your God raise up out of your brethren, like to me, him shall ye hear.
38‘This is he who was in the assembly in the wilderness, with the messenger who is speaking to him in the mount Sinai, and with our fathers who did receive the living oracles to give to us;
39to whom our fathers did not wish to become obedient, but did thrust away, and turned back in their hearts to Egypt,
40saying to Aaron, Make to us gods who shall go on before us, for this Moses, who brought us forth out of the land of Egypt, we have not known what hath happened to him.
41‘And they made a calf in those days, and brought a sacrifice to the idol, and were rejoicing in the works of their hands,
42and God did turn, and did give them up to do service to the host of the heaven, according as it hath been written in the scroll of the prophets: Slain beasts and sacrifices did ye offer to Me forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?
43and ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan — the figures that ye made to bow before them, and I will remove your dwelling beyond Babylon.
44‘The tabernacle of the testimony was among our fathers in the wilderness, according as He did direct, who is speaking to Moses, to make it according to the figure that he had seen;
45which also our fathers having in succession received, did bring in with Joshua, into the possession of the nations whom God did drive out from the presence of our fathers, till the days of David,
46who found favour before God, and requested to find a tabernacle for the God of Jacob;
47and Solomon built Him an house.
48‘But the Most High in sanctuaries made with hands doth not dwell, according as the prophet saith:
49The heaven [is] My throne, and the earth My footstool; what house will ye build to Me? saith the Lord, or what [is] the place of My rest?
50hath not My hand made all these things?
51‘Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and in ears! ye do always the Holy Spirit resist; as your fathers — also ye;
52which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? and they killed those who declared before about the coming of the Righteous One, of whom now ye betrayers and murderers have become,
53who received the law by arrangement of messengers, and did not keep [it].’
54And hearing these things, they were cut to the hearts, and did gnash the teeth at him;
55and being full of the Holy Spirit, having looked stedfastly to the heaven, he saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,
56and he said, ‘Lo, I see the heavens having been opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God.’
57And they, having cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and did rush with one accord upon him,
58and having cast him forth outside of the city, they were stoning [him] — and the witnesses did put down their garments at the feet of a young man called Saul —
59and they were stoning Stephen, calling and saying, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit;’
60and having bowed the knees, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lord, mayest thou not lay to them this sin;’ and this having said, he fell asleep.
Currently Selected:
Acts 7: YLT98
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
maintained by the British and Foreign Bible Society
Acts 7
7
Stephen, Full of the Holy Spirit
1Then the Chief Priest said, “What do you have to say for yourself?”
2-3Stephen replied, “Friends, fathers, and brothers, the God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was still in Mesopotamia, before the move to Haran, and told him, ‘Leave your country and family and go to the land I’ll show you.’
4-7“So he left the country of the Chaldees and moved to Haran. After the death of his father, he immigrated to this country where you now live, but God gave him nothing, not so much as a foothold. He did promise to give the country to him and his son later on, even though Abraham had no son at the time. God let him know that his offspring would move to an alien country where they would be enslaved and brutalized for four hundred years. ‘But,’ God said, ‘I will step in and take care of those slaveholders and bring my people out so they can worship me in this place.’
8“Then he made a covenant with him and signed it in Abraham’s flesh by circumcision. When Abraham had his son Isaac, within eight days he reproduced the sign of circumcision in him. Isaac became father of Jacob, and Jacob father of twelve ‘fathers,’ each faithfully passing on the covenant sign.
9-10“But then those ‘fathers,’ burning up with jealousy, sent Joseph off to Egypt as a slave. God was right there with him, though—he not only rescued him from all his troubles but brought him to the attention of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. He was so impressed with Joseph that he put him in charge of the whole country, including his own personal affairs.
11-15a “Later a famine descended on that entire region, stretching from Egypt to Canaan, bringing terrific hardship. Our hungry fathers looked high and low for food, but the cupboard was bare. Jacob heard there was food in Egypt and sent our fathers to scout it out. Having confirmed the report, they went back to Egypt a second time to get food. On that visit, Joseph revealed his true identity to his brothers and introduced the Jacob family to Pharaoh. Then Joseph sent for his father, Jacob, and everyone else in the family, seventy-five in all. That’s how the Jacob family got to Egypt.
15b-16 “Jacob died, and our fathers after him. They were taken to Shechem and buried in the tomb for which Abraham paid a good price to the sons of Hamor.
17-19“When the four hundred years were nearly up, the time God promised Abraham for deliverance, the population of our people in Egypt had become very large. And there was now a king over Egypt who had never heard of Joseph. He exploited our race mercilessly. He went so far as forcing us to abandon our newborn infants, exposing them to the elements to die a cruel death.
20-22“In just such a time Moses was born, a most beautiful baby. He was hidden at home for three months. When he could be hidden no longer, he was put outside—and immediately rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter, who mothered him as her own son. Moses was educated in the best schools in Egypt. He was equally impressive as a thinker and an athlete.
23-26“When he was forty years old, he wondered how everything was going with his Hebrew kin and went out to look things over. He saw an Egyptian abusing one of them and stepped in, avenging his underdog brother by knocking the Egyptian flat. He thought his brothers would be glad that he was on their side, and even see him as an instrument of God to deliver them. But they didn’t see it that way. The next day two of them were fighting and he tried to break it up, told them to shake hands and get along with each other: ‘Friends, you are brothers, why are you beating up on each other?’
27-29“The one who had started the fight said, ‘Who put you in charge of us? Are you going to kill me like you killed that Egyptian yesterday?’ When Moses heard that, realizing that the word was out, he ran for his life and lived in exile over in Midian. During the years of exile, two sons were born to him.
30-32“Forty years later, in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, an angel appeared to him in the guise of flames of a burning bush. Moses, not believing his eyes, went up to take a closer look. He heard God’s voice: ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ Frightened nearly out of his skin, Moses shut his eyes and turned away.
33-34“God said, ‘Kneel and pray. You are in a holy place, on holy ground. I’ve seen the agony of my people in Egypt. I’ve heard their groans. I’ve come to help them. So get yourself ready; I’m sending you back to Egypt.’
35-39a “This is the same Moses whom they earlier rejected, saying, ‘Who put you in charge of us?’ This is the Moses that God, using the angel flaming in the burning bush, sent back as ruler and redeemer. He led them out of their slavery. He did wonderful things, setting up God-signs all through Egypt, down at the Red Sea, and out in the wilderness for forty years. This is the Moses who said to his congregation, ‘God will raise up a prophet just like me from your descendants.’ This is the Moses who stood between the angel speaking at Sinai and your fathers assembled in the wilderness and took the life-giving words given to him and handed them over to us, words our fathers would have nothing to do with.
39b-41 “They craved the old Egyptian ways, whining to Aaron, ‘Make us gods we can see and follow. This Moses who got us out here miles from nowhere—who knows what’s happened to him!’ That was the time when they made a calf-idol, brought sacrifices to it, and congratulated each other on the wonderful religious program they had put together.
42-43“God wasn’t at all pleased; but he let them do it their way, worship every new god that came down the pike—and live with the consequences, consequences described by the prophet Amos:
Did you bring me offerings of animals and grains
those forty wilderness years, O Israel?
Hardly. You were too busy building shrines
to war gods, to sex goddesses,
Worshiping them with all your might.
That’s why I put you in exile in Babylon.
44-47“And all this time our ancestors had a tent shrine for true worship, made to the exact specifications God provided Moses. They had it with them as they followed Joshua, when God cleared the land of pagans, and still had it right down to the time of David. David asked God for a permanent place for worship. But Solomon built it.
48-50“Yet that doesn’t mean that Most High God lives in a building made by carpenters and masons. The prophet Isaiah put it well when he wrote,
“Heaven is my throne room;
I rest my feet on earth.
So what kind of house
will you build me?” says God.
“Where I can get away and relax?
It’s already built, and I built it.”
51-53“And you continue, so bullheaded! Calluses on your hearts, flaps on your ears! Deliberately ignoring the Holy Spirit, you’re just like your ancestors. Was there ever a prophet who didn’t get the same treatment? Your ancestors killed anyone who dared talk about the coming of the Just One. And you’ve kept up the family tradition—traitors and murderers, all of you. You had God’s Law handed to you by angels—gift-wrapped!—and you squandered it!”
54-56At that point they went wild, a rioting mob of catcalls and whistles and invective. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, hardly noticed—he only had eyes for God, whom he saw in all his glory with Jesus standing at his side. He said, “Oh! I see heaven wide open and the Son of Man standing at God’s side!”
57-58Yelling and hissing, the mob drowned him out. Now in full stampede, they dragged him out of town and pelted him with rocks. The ringleaders took off their coats and asked a young man named Saul to watch them.
59-60As the rocks rained down, Stephen prayed, “Master Jesus, take my life.” Then he knelt down, praying loud enough for everyone to hear, “Master, don’t blame them for this sin”—his last words. Then he died.
Saul was right there, congratulating the killers.
Currently Selected:
:
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.