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the high priest asked Stephen, “Are these charges true?”
2 To this he replied, “Brothers and fathers, listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, 3 and said to him, ‘Get out of your country and away from relatives, and go to the land that I will show you’.
4 “Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. From there, after his father died, God had him move to this land in which you now live. 5 He gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot of ground. But God promised that He would give the land to Abraham as a possession, and to his descendants after him, even though he was childless. 6 God spoke in this way: that his descendants would be strangers in a foreign land, and they would be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. 7 ‘But I will judge the nation they serve as slaves’, God said, ‘and after that they will come out and worship Me in this place’. 8 Then He gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision. 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 “The patriarchs became jealous of Joseph and sold him into Egypt. But God was with him 10 and rescued him out of all his troubles. He gave him a favour and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who appointed him governor over Egypt and over his whole household.
11 “Then a famine came over all of Egypt and Canaan, bringing great suffering, and our fathers could find no food. 12 When Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our fathers there on their first visit. 13 On the second visit, Joseph revealed himself to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to Pharaoh. 14 Then Joseph invited his father Jacob and all his relatives, seventy-five people in all. 15 So Jacob went down to Egypt, and he died there, along with our fathers. 16 Their bodies were carried back to Shechem, and were placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.
17 “As the time drew near to fulfil the promise that God had made to Abraham, the people flourished and multiplied in Egypt, 18 until a different king who did not know Joseph ruled over Egypt. 19 He dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our forefathers by forcing them to abandon their infants so that they would die.
20 “At that time Moses was born, and he was beautiful before God. He was nursed for three months in his father’s house; 21 and when he was placed outside, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and raised him as her own son. 22 So Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was powerful in his speech and deeds.
23 “When Moses was forty years old, He decided to visit his brothers, the sons of Israel. 24 When he saw one of them being mistreated, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. 25 He assumed his brothers would understand that God was going to give them deliverance through him, but they did not understand. 26 The next day he showed up as two of them were quarrelling. He tried to reconcile them by saying, ‘Men, you are brothers; why are you mistreating other?’
27 “But the man who was mistreating his neighbour pushed him away, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? 28 Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ 29 When Moses heard this, he fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he fathered two sons.
30 “After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flames of a burning bush. 31 When Moses saw this, he was amazed at the sight. As he approached to look at this, the voice of the Lord came: 32 ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’. Moses began to tremble and did not dare to look.
33 “Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. 34 I have surely seen the oppression of My people in Egypt; I have heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them. Now come, I will send you to Egypt’.
35 “This Moses, whom they rejected when they said, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’ is the one God sent to be a ruler and deliverer through the angel who appeared to him in the bush. 36 He led them out of Egypt and performed wonders and miraculous signs in the land of Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years.
37 “This is the Moses who said to the sons of Israel, ‘God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your own people’. 38 He is the one 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 “But our fathers were unwilling to obey him, but pushed him away, and in their hearts turned back to Egypt. 40 They told Aaron, ‘Make us gods to go before us. As for this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him’. 41 They even made a calf at that time, and offered sacrifices to the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands. 42 Then God turned away from them and gave them up to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets:
‘Did you bring Me offerings and sacrifices
forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?
43 No, you lifted up the shrine of Moloch,
and the star of your god Rephan,
the idols you made to worship.
So I will send you into exile beyond Babylon’.
44 “Our forefathers had the tabernacle of the Testimony in the wilderness, just as God had instructed Moses to make according to the pattern he had seen. 45 Our forefathers in turn brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before them. It then remained with our forefathers until the days of David. 46 He found favour with God and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. 47 But it was Solomon who built Him a house.
48 “However, the Most High does not dwell in sanctuaries made with hands, as the prophet says:
49 ‘Heaven is My throne,
and earth is My footstool.
What sort of house will you build for Me?’says the Lord,
‘or where is the place of My rest?
50 Did not My hand make all these things?’
51 “You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so you do also. 52 Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They even killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers. 53 You received the law at the direction of angels and yet you have not obeyed it.
54 When they heard these things, they became enraged, and they gnashed their teeth at him. 55 But Stephen, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 “Look,” he said, “I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”
57 At this they covered their ears and, screaming at the top of their voices, they rushed together against him. 58 Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul.
59 While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 60 Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.