Acts 7:1-8:2 Then the high priest said, Are these things so?

RKJNT⁽ⁱ⁾ ¹ Then the high priest said, Are these things so? ² And he said, Brethren and fathers, listen; The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Harran, ³ And said to him, Depart from your country, and from your family, and come into the land which I shall show you. ⁴ Then he came out of the land of the Chaldaeans, and lived in Harran: and from there, when his father was dead, God sent him into this land, in which you now live. ⁵ And he gave him no inheritance in it, no, not even enough to set his foot on: yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his descendants after him, even though as yet he had no child. ⁶ And God spoke to this effect, That his descendants would be strangers in a foreign land; and that they would bring them into bondage, and mistreat them for four hundred years. ⁷ And the nation to whom they shall be in bondage I will judge, said God: and after that they shall come forth, and serve me in this place. ⁸ And he gave him the covenant of circumcision: and so Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him on the eighth day; and Isaac became the father of Jacob; and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs. ⁹ And the patriarchs, moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt: but God was with him, ¹⁰ And delivered him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favour and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh, king of Egypt; who made him governor over Egypt and all his house. ¹¹ Now there came a famine over all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction: and our fathers could find no food. ¹² But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers the first time. ¹³ And at the second time Joseph made himself known to his brothers; and Joseph's family was made known to Pharaoh. ¹⁴ Then Joseph sent for his father Jacob, and for all his family, seventy-five in all. ¹⁵ So Jacob went down to Egypt, and died, he, and our fathers, ¹⁶ And they were carried over into Shechem, and laid in the tomb that Abraham bought for a sum of money from the sons of Emmor, the father of Shechem. ¹⁷ But when the time of the promise drew near, which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt, ¹⁸ Until another king arose, who knew nothing of Joseph. ¹⁹ He dealt treacherously with our race, and mistreated our fathers, forcing them to expose their young children, that they might not live. ²⁰ At this time Moses was born, and was exceedingly fair in God's sight, and he was cared for in his father's house for three months: ²¹ And when he was exposed, Pharaoh's daughter took him up, and raised him as her own son. ²² And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds. ²³ When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the sons of Israel. ²⁴ And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him who was oppressed, and struck the Egyptian: ²⁵ For he supposed his brethren understood that God was granting them deliverance by his hand: but they did not understand. ²⁶ And the next day he appeared to some as they fought, and tried to reconcile them, saying, Men, you are brethren; why do you wrong one another? ²⁷ But he who was doing his neighbour wrong thrust him away, saying, Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? ²⁸ Do you want to kill me, as you did the Egyptian yesterday? ²⁹ At this remark, Moses fled, and became a stranger in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons. ³⁰ And when forty years had passed, there appeared to him in the wilderness of mount Sinai an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush. ³¹ When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight: and as he drew near to behold it, the voice of the Lord came to him, ³² Saying, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Then Moses trembled, and dared not look. ³³ Then the Lord said to him, Take the sandals off your feet: for the place where you stand is holy ground. ³⁴ I have surely seen the affliction of my people in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning, and have come down to deliver them. Now come, and I will send you to Egypt. ³⁵ This Moses whom they rejected, saying, Who made you a ruler and a judge? was the one God sent to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. ³⁶ He brought them out, after he had shown wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and at the Red sea, and in the wilderness for forty years. ³⁷ This is the Moses who said to the sons of Israel, The Lord your God shall raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brethren. ³⁸ This is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness, with the angel who spoke to him on mount Sinai, and with our fathers: and he received the living oracles to give to us. ³⁹ Our fathers would not obey him, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again to Egypt, ⁴⁰ Saying to Aaron, Make us gods to go before us: as for this 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 in those days, and offered a sacrifice to the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands. ⁴² Then God turned away and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, Was it to me you offered slain beasts and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? ⁴³ You took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Rephan, figures which you made to worship: therefore I will carry you away beyond Babylon. ⁴⁴ Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, made according to the pattern appointed by the one who spoke to Moses. ⁴⁵ Our fathers then brought it in with Joshua when they took possession of the land of the Gentiles, whom God drove out before our fathers. And so it remained there until the days of David; ⁴⁶ Who found favour with God, and desired to find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. ⁴⁷ But it was Solomon who built him a house. ⁴⁸ Yet the most High does not dwell in temples made with hands; as the prophet says, ⁴⁹ Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool: what house will you build for me? says the Lord: or what is the place in which I can rest? ⁵⁰ Has not my hand made all these things? ⁵¹ You stiffnecked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit: as your fathers did, so you do. ⁵² Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? and they killed those who told beforehand of the coming of the Righteous One; whom you have now betrayed and murdered: ⁵³ You who have received the law as delivered by angels, and have not kept it. ⁵⁴ When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed their teeth at him. ⁵⁵ But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, ⁵⁶ And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God. ⁵⁷ Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord, ⁵⁸ And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man's feet, whose name was Saul. ⁵⁹ And as they stoned Stephen he called upon God, saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. ⁶⁰ And he knelt down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold this sin against them. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. ⁸ ¹ And Saul was consenting to his death. And on that day a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles. ² And devout men buried Stephen, and made great lamentation over him.