¹Then the high priest questioned Stephen. He asked, “Are these charges true?”

²Stephen replied, “Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still living near the Euphrates River, before he moved to Harran.

³‘Leave your country and your people,’ God told him, ‘and go to the land that I will show you.’

⁴“So Abraham left that land and settled in Harran. After Abraham’s father died, God sent him to this land where you are now living.

⁵God didn’t give him any property here, not even enough to set a foot on. But God promised him that the whole land would belong to him and to his family after him, even though Abraham had no children at that time.

⁶God said to him, ‘For 400 years the family that comes from you will be strangers in a foreign country. They’ll be slaves and they’ll be treated badly.

⁷But I will punish the nation that makes them slaves. After that, they will leave that country and worship me here.’

⁸Then God made a covenant with Abraham. God told him that circumcision would show who was part of the agreement. When Abraham became the father of Isaac, he circumcised him eight days after he was born. Later, Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob had 12 sons whose families later grew to become the 12 tribes of Israel.

⁹“Jacob’s sons were jealous of their brother Joseph, so they sold him as a slave, and he was taken to Egypt. But God was with Joseph,

¹⁰and he saved him from all his troubles. God helped Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, see how wise Joseph was and how good it would be to have him in his court. Pharaoh made Joseph ruler over Egypt and his whole palace.

¹¹“Then there was a famine in all of Egypt and Canaan. This brought great suffering. Jacob and his sons couldn’t find any food.

¹²But Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, so he sent his sons down to get some.

¹³They had to go back again, and at that time Joseph showed his brothers who he was. Pharaoh learned where Joseph was from,

¹⁴and Joseph then sent for his father Jacob and his whole family. There were 75 people in all.

¹⁵Jacob went down to Egypt, and he and his family died there.

¹⁶Some of their bodies were brought back to Shechem and placed in a tomb that Abraham had bought from Hamor’s sons for a certain amount of money.

¹⁷“But the number of our people who were in Egypt got bigger and bigger. The time was coming when God would make his promise to Abraham come true.

¹⁸Then ‘a new king came to power in Egypt, and Joseph didn’t mean anything to him.’

¹⁹That king was very dishonest with our people and he treated them badly. He even forced them to abandon their babies so they would die.

²⁰“At that time Moses was born, and he was very special to God. For three months his family took care of him,

²¹but then they had to leave him outside. But Pharaoh’s daughter found him, took him home, and brought him up as her own son.

²²Moses went to school and learned everything the Egyptians knew. He became a powerful speaker and a man of action.

²³“When Moses was 40 years old, he decided to visit his own people, the people of Israel.

²⁴When he saw an Egyptian treating one of them badly, he went to help that man. He struck the Egyptian and killed him.

²⁵Moses thought his own people would realize that God was using him to save them. But they didn’t.

²⁶The next day Moses saw two Israelites fighting, and he tried to make peace between them. ‘Men, you are both Israelites,’ he said. ‘Why do you want to hurt each other?’

²⁷“But one man, who was hurting the other one, pushed Moses aside. He said, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us?

²⁸Are you going to kill me the way you killed that Egyptian yesterday?’

²⁹When Moses heard this, he ran away to Midian. There he lived as a foreigner, and he had two sons.

³⁰“Forty years went by. Then an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai.

³¹When Moses saw the bush, he was amazed and went over for a closer look. There he heard the Lord say,

³²‘I am the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ Moses shook with fear and didn’t dare to look.

³³“Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, because the place where you are standing is holy ground.

³⁴I’ve seen my people being beaten down in Egypt. I’ve heard their groans and I’ve come to set them free. Now go, I’m sending you back to Egypt.’

³⁵“This is the same Moses those men of Israel rejected by saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge?’ But God himself sent Moses to rule the people of Israel and set them free when he spoke to him through the angel who appeared in the bush.

³⁶Moses led them out of Egypt by doing wonders and signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and for 40 years in the desert.

³⁷“This is the same Moses who said to the Israelites, ‘God will send you a prophet like me who will come from your own people.’

³⁸Moses was with the Israelites in the desert, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our people of long ago. He received living words to pass on to us.

³⁹“But those people refused to obey Moses. They rejected him and wished in their hearts that they were back in Egypt.

⁴⁰They told Aaron, ‘Make us a god who will lead us. That man Moses brought us up out of Egypt, but we don’t know what has happened to him!’

⁴¹That was the time when they made a statue shaped like a calf to be their god and brought sacrifices to it. They held a feast in honor of what they’d made with their own hands!

⁴²But God turned away from them, and they worshipped the sun, moon, and stars instead. This is just what is written in the book of the prophets, where God says to the people of Israel,

“ ‘Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings

for 40 years in the desert?

⁴³You brought the shrine of your false god Molek with you.

You brought the star of your false god Rephan.

You made statues of those gods to worship.

So I will send you away from your country.’

God sent them to Babylon and even farther away.

⁴⁴“Long ago, when our people were in the desert, they had the holy tent with them. That was where the tablets with the terms of God’s covenant were kept. God showed Moses a pattern for the tent, and he made it just like what he’d seen.

⁴⁵The tent was passed down to our people and they brought it with them when they took the land of Canaan. At that time Joshua was Israel’s leader, and God drove out the nations that were in their way. The tent stayed in the land until David’s time.

⁴⁶He was on good terms with God, and he asked if he could build a real house for the God of Jacob to live in.

⁴⁷But it was Solomon who built the temple for God.

⁴⁸“But the Most High God does not live in houses made by human hands. As God says through the prophet,

⁴⁹“ ‘Heaven is my throne,

and the earth is where I rest my feet.

What kind of house will you build for me?

asks the Lord.

Where will my resting place be?

⁵⁰Didn’t my hand make all these things?’

⁵¹“You stubborn people! You won’t obey! You won’t listen! You’re just like your people of long ago! You always oppose the Holy Spirit!

⁵²Was there ever a prophet your people didn’t attack? They even killed those who told about the coming of the Blameless One. And now you’ve handed him over to his enemies and murdered him.

⁵³You have received the law that was given by angels, but you haven’t obeyed it.”

⁵⁴When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they got so angry that they ground their teeth at Stephen.

⁵⁵But he was filled with the Holy Spirit and looked up to heaven and saw God’s glory. There was Jesus, standing at God’s right hand.

⁵⁶“Look!” he said. “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at God’s right hand.”

⁵⁷When they heard this, they covered their ears and yelled at the top of their voices. They all rushed at Stephen,

⁵⁸dragged him out of the city, and threw stones at him to kill him. The people who’d brought false charges against Stephen took off their coats and placed them at the feet of a young man named Saul.

⁵⁹While they were all throwing stones at Stephen, he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”

⁶⁰Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, don’t hold this sin against them!” After he’d said this, he fell asleep.