Acts

7 And 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 ‘Come out from your country and your kin, and come to the country I will show you.’ 4 Then he went out from the country of the Chaldeans and lived in Harran. And from there, after his father was dead, God had him move to this country you are living in now, 5 and did not give him inheritance enough in it even to set his foot on; and he promised to give it to him as a possession, and to his descendants after him—when he had no child. 6* But God spoke in this way: that his descendants should live the life of immigrants in an alien country, and they should enslave this posterity and ill-treat it four hundred years; 7 ‘and the nation they are in slavery to I will judge,’ said God, ‘and after that they shall come out and worship me in this place’; 8 and he gave him the covenant of circumcision. And thus he had his son Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day, and Isaac Jacob, and Jacob the twelve founders of the tribes. 9 And the Founders, becoming jealous of Joseph, sold him down to Egypt; and God was with him, 10 and rescued him out of all his distresses, and gave him favor and wisdom before the Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and he appointed him ruler over Egypt and over all his household.

11 “And there came a famine all over Egypt and Canaan, and great distress; and our fathers could not find enough to eat. 12 And Jacob, hearing that there were breadstufs in Egypt, sent out our fathers a first time; 13 and at the second sending Joseph’s identity was made known to his brothers, and the Pharaoh discovered Joseph’s race. 14 And Joseph sent and had his father Jacob come, and all his kin, numbering seventy-five souls. 15 And Jacob went down to Egypt, and passed away, he and our fathers, 16 and were conveyed to Shekem and put in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a cash price from the sons of Hamor at Shekem.

17 “But as the time of the promise God had given to Abraham approached, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt 18* until there came up over Egypt another king who did not know Joseph; 19 he, laying a shrewd plan against our race, maltreated our fathers in having their babies exposed so that they should not be kept alive. 20 At which time was born Moses, and was divinely pretty; who was nurtured three months in his father’s home, 21 and when he was exposed the Pharaoh’s daughter took him up and raised him as her son. 22 And Moses was educated in all the science of the Egyptians, and was powerful in his words and deeds. 23 And when he was completing a span of forty years it came into his mind to visit his brothers the sons of Israel, 24 and, seeing one suffering a wrong, he took the part of the maltreated man and did vengeance for him, striking down the Egyptian. 25 And he supposed his brothers understood that by his hand God was giving them salvation; but they did not. 26 And on the following day he appeared to them as they were fighting, and was pacifying them, saying ‘Boys, you are brothers; what do you wrong each other for?’ 27* But he who was wronging his fellow rebuffed him, saying ‘Who appointed you chief justice over us? 28 are you meaning to take my life the same as you took the Egyptian’s yesterday?’ 29 And Moses took flight at those words, and settled as an immigrant in the country of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.

30 “And when forty years had elapsed there appeared to him in the desert of Mount Sinai an angel in a flame of fire in a bush. 31 And Moses, seeing it, wondered at the sight; but as he came up to it to look at it the Lord’s voice came, 32 ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob,’ and Moses, with his flesh creeping, dared not look. 33 And the Lord said to him ‘Unfasten the shoes from your feet; for the place you are standing on is sacred ground. 34 I have seen how my people in Egypt are maltreated, and heard their groaning, and come down to rescue them; now come, let me send you to Egypt.’

35** “This Moses whom they had repudiated, saying ‘Who appointed you chief justice over us?’ him God has sent as both chief and redeemer with the hand of the angel that had appeared to him in the bush. 36 This man brought them out, doing wonders and tokens in Egypt and at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years. 37 This was the Moses who said to the sons of Israel ‘God will raise up for you from among your brothers a prophet, like me.’ 38* This was the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel that spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our fathers; he who received living sayings to give to us; 39 to whom our fathers would not yield obedience, but rebuffed him and turned round to Egypt in their hearts, 40 saying to Aaron ‘Make us gods who shall go before us; for we do not know what has become of that Moses who brought us out of Egypt’; 41 and they made a calf in those days and offered sacrifice to the idol, and jubilated in the work of their hands. 42 But God turned and gave them up to worship the host of the sky, as it is written in the book of the prophets ‘Did you offer me slaughtered beasts and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, house of Israel? 43 and you took up the tent of Moloch and the star of the god Rephan, the figures you had made to do reverence to—and I will remove you beyond Babylon.’

44 “Our fathers had the Tabernacle of the Testimony in the wilderness, as he who spoke to Moses prescribed that he should make it in conformity with the figure he had seen; 45 which same our fathers, succeeding to it, brought in with Joshua at the dispossession of the nations God expelled before our fathers, till the days of David; 46* who found favor before God and asked to find a dwelling for the God of Jacob. 47 And Solomon built him a house. 48 But the Most High does not live in man-made abodes, not he; as the prophet says 49 ‘I have the sky for throne, and the earth is the footstool for my feet; what house will you build me, says the Lord? or what is the place for my rest? 50 did not my hand make all this?’

51 “Stiff-necked men, uncircumcised in hearts and ears, you are always throwing yourselves against the Holy Spirit, you the same as your fathers. 52 Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute, and kill those who announced beforehand about the coming of the Righteous One whose betrayers and murderers you have now become? 53 you who received the law for the prescriptions of angels and did not keep it!”