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The Acts of the Apostles

Unlocked Dynamic Bible :: World English Bible Catholic

- Chapter 7 -

(Genesis 12:1–9)
1
Then the high priest asked Stephen, “Are the things that these people are saying about you true?”
2
Stephen replied, “Fellow Jews and respected leaders, please listen to me! Glorious God whom we worship appeared to our ancestor Abraham while he was still living in the region of Mesopotamia, before he moved to the city of Haran.
3
God said to him, ‘Leave this land where you and your relatives are living, and go into the land which I will direct you to.’
4
So Abraham left that land, which was also called Chaldea, and he arrived in Haran and lived there. After his father died, God told him to move to this land in which you and I are now living.
5
At that time God did not give Abraham any land to own here, not even a small plot of this land. But God promised that he would later give this land to him and his descendants, and that it would always belong to them. However, at that time Abraham did not have any children who would inherit it.
6
Later God told Abraham, ’Your descendants will go and live in a foreign country. They will live there for four hundred years, and during that time their leaders will mistreat your descendants and force them to work as slaves.
7
‘But I will punish the people who make them work as slaves. After that, your descendants will leave that land, and they will come and worship me in this land.’
8
Then God commanded that every male in Abraham’s household and all of his male descendants should be circumcised to show that they all belonged to God. Later Abraham’s son, Isaac, was born, and when Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him. Later Isaac’s son, Jacob, was born. Jacob was the father of the twelve men whom we Jews call the patriarchs, our forefathers.

Joseph Sold into Egypt

(Genesis 37:12–30)
9
You know that Jacob’s older sons became jealous because their father favored their younger brother Joseph. So they sold him to merchants, who took him to Egypt, where he became a slave. But God helped Joseph;
10
He protected him whenever people caused him to suffer. He enabled Joseph to be wise, and he caused Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, to think well of Joseph. So Pharaoh appointed him to rule over Egypt and to look after all of Pharaoh’s property.
11
While Joseph was doing that work, there was a time when there was very little food in Egypt and also in Canaan. People were suffering. At that time Jacob and his sons in Canaan also could not find enough food.
12
When Jacob heard people report that there was grain that people could buy in Egypt, he sent Joseph’s older brothers to go there to buy grain. They went and bought grain from Joseph, but they did not recognize him. Then they returned home.
13
When Joseph’s brothers went to Egypt the second time, they again bought grain from Joseph. But this time he told them who he was. And so Pharaoh learned that Joseph’s people were Hebrews and that those men who had come from Canaan were his brothers.
14
Then after Joseph sent his brothers back home, they told their father Jacob that Joseph wanted him and his entire family to come to Egypt. At that time Jacob’s family consisted of seventy-five people.

Israel Oppressed in Egypt

(Exodus 1:8–22)
15
So when Jacob heard that, he and all his family went to live in Egypt. Later on, Jacob died there, and our other ancestors, his sons, also died there.
16
Their bodies were brought back to our land and were buried in the tomb that Abraham had bought from Hamor’s sons in the city of Shechem.
17
Our ancestors had become very numerous when it was almost time for God to rescue them from Egypt, as he had promised Abraham that he would do.
18
Another king had begun to rule in Egypt. He did not know that Joseph had greatly helped the people of Egypt, long before his own time.
19
That king cruelly tried to get rid of our ancestors. He oppressed them and caused them to suffer greatly. He even commanded them to throw their newborn babies outside their homes so that they would die.

The Birth and Adoption of Moses

(Exodus 2:1–10; Hebrews 11:23–29)
20
During that time Moses was born, and God saw that he was a very beautiful child. So his parents secretly cared for him in their house for three months.
21
Then they had to put him outside the house, but Pharaoh’s daughter found him and cared for him as though he were her own son.
22
Moses was taught all the learning that the people in Egypt knew, and when he grew up, he spoke and did things powerfully.

The Rejection and Flight of Moses

(Exodus 2:11–22)
23
One day when Moses was about forty years old, he decided that he would go and visit his relatives, the Israelites.
24
He saw an Egyptian mistreating one of the Israelites. So he went over to help the Israelite man, and he avenged the Israelite man by killing the Egyptian.
25
Moses thought that his fellow Israelites would understand that God had sent him to free them from being slaves. But they did not understand.
26
The next day, Moses saw two Israelite men fighting each other. He tried to make them stop fighting by saying to them, ‘Men, you two are fellow Israelites! Why are you hurting each other?’
27
But the man who was injuring the other man pushed Moses away and said to him, ’No one appointed you ruler and judge over us!
28
Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’
29
When Moses heard that, he fled from Egypt to Midian land. He lived there for some years. He got married, and he and his wife had two sons.

The Call of Moses

(Exodus 3:1–22)
30
One day forty years later, Lord God appeared as an angel to Moses. He appeared in the flame of a bush that was burning in the desert near Mount Sinai.
31
When Moses saw it, he was amazed, because the bush was not burning up. As he went over to look more closely, he heard Lord God say to him,
32
‘I am God whom your ancestors worshiped. I am God that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob worship.’ Moses was so afraid that he began to shake. He was afraid to look at the bush any longer.
33
Then Lord God said to him, ’Take your sandals off to show that you honor me. Because I am here, the place where you are standing is especially mine.
34
I have certainly seen how the people of Egypt are continually causing my people to suffer. I have heard my people when they groan because of it. So I have come down to rescue them from Egypt. Now get ready, because I am going to send you back to Egypt.’
35
This Moses is the one who had tried to help our Israelite people, but whom they rejected by saying, ‘No one appointed you ruler and judge!’ Moses is the one whom God himself sent to rule them and to free them from being slaves. He is the one whom an angel in the bush commanded to do that.
36
Moses is the one who led our ancestors out from Egypt. He did many kinds of miracles in Egypt in order to show that God was with him, at the Sea of Reeds, and during the forty years that the Israelite people lived in the wilderness.
37
This Moses is the one who said to the Israelite people, ‘God will cause another man from among your own people to be a prophet like me for you.’
38
It was this man Moses who was among the Israelites who were together in the wilderness; he was with the angel who had spoken to him on Mount Sinai. It is Moses to whom God had the angel on Mount Sinai give him our laws, and he was the one who told our ancestors what the angel had said. He was the one who received from God words that tell us how to live eternally and passed them on to us.

The Rebellion of Israel

(Exodus 32:1–35; Deuteronomy 9:7–29; Amos 5:16–27)
39
However, our ancestors did not want to obey Moses. Instead, they rejected him as their leader and wanted to return to Egypt.
40
So they told his older brother Aaron, ‘Make idols for us who will be our gods to lead us. As for that fellow Moses who led us out of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him!’
41
So they made an image that looked like a calf. Then they offered sacrifices to honor that idol, and they sang and danced because of what they themselves had made.
42
So God stopped correcting them. He abandoned them to worship the sun, moon and stars in the sky. This agrees with the words that one of the prophets wrote: God said, ’You Israelite people, when you repeatedly killed animals and offered them as sacrifices during those forty years that you were in the wilderness, were you offering them to me?
43
On the contrary, you carried with you from place to place the tent that contained the idol representing the god Molech that you worshiped. You also carried with you the image of the star called Rephan. Those were idols that you had made, and you worshiped them instead of me. So I will cause you to be taken away far from your homes to regions even farther than Babylon country.’

The Tabernacle of the Testimony

(Exodus 40:1–33; Hebrews 9:1–10)
44
“While our ancestors were in the desert, they worshiped God at the sacred tent that showed that he was there with them. They had made the tent exactly like God had commanded Moses to make it. It was exactly like the model that Moses had seen when he was up on the mountain.
45
Later on, other ancestors of ours carried that tent with them when Joshua led them into this land. That was during the time that they took this land for themselves, when God forced the people who previously lived here to leave. So the Israelites were able to possess this land. The tent remained in this land and was still here when King David ruled.
46
David pleased God, and he asked God to let him build a temple where he and all of our Israelite people could worship God.
47
But instead, God told David’s son Solomon to build a temple where people could worship him.”
48
“However, we know that God is greater than everything, and he does not live in houses that people have made. It is like the prophet Isaiah wrote:
49
God said, “Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. I myself have made everything both in heaven and on the earth.
50
So you human beings cannot make a place good enough for me to live in!”
51
“You people are extremely stubborn toward him! You are exactly like your ancestors! You always resist the Holy Spirit, just as they did!
52
Your ancestors caused every prophet to suffer. They even killed those who long ago announced that the Messiah would come, the one who always did what pleased God. And the Messiah has come! He is the one whom you recently turned over to his enemies and insisted that they kill him!
53
You are the people who have received God’s laws. Those were laws that God caused angels to give to our ancestors. However, you have not obeyed them!”

The Stoning of Stephen

54
When the Jewish council members and others there heard all that Stephen said, they became very angry. They were grinding their teeth together because they were so angry at him!
55
But the Holy Spirit completely controlled Stephen. He looked up into heaven and saw a dazzling light from God, and he saw Jesus standing at God’s right side.
56
“Look,” he said, “I see heaven open, and I see the Son of Man standing at God’s right side!”
57
When the Jewish council members and others heard that, they shouted loudly. They put their hands over their ears so that they would not hear him, and immediately they all rushed at him.
58
They dragged him outside the city of Jerusalem and started to throw stones at him. The people who were accusing him took off their outer garments in order to throw stones more easily, and they put their clothes on the ground next to a young man whose name was Saul, so that he could guard them.
59
While they continued to throw stones at Stephen, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!”
60
Then Stephen fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not punish them for this sin!” After he had said this, he died.
(Genesis 12:1–9)
1
The high priest said, “Are these things so?”
2
He said, “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 land and away from your relatives, and come into a land which I will show you.’(a)
4
Then he came out of the land of the Chaldaeans and lived in Haran. From there, when his father was dead, God moved him into this land where you are now living.
5
He gave him no inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on. He promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his offspring after him, when he still had no child.
6
God spoke in this way: that his offspring would live as aliens in a strange land, and that they would be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years.
7
I will judge the nation to which they will be in bondage,’ said God, ‘and after that they will come out and serve me in this place.’(b)
8
He gave him the covenant of circumcision. So Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day. Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.

Joseph Sold into Egypt

(Genesis 37:12–30)
9
The patriarchs, moved with jealousy against Joseph, sold him into Egypt. God was with him
10
and delivered him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt. He made him governor over Egypt and all his house.
11
Now a famine came over all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction. Our fathers found no food.
12
But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers the first time.
13
On the second time Joseph was made known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family was revealed to Pharaoh.
14
Joseph sent and summoned Jacob his father and all his relatives, seventy-five souls.

Israel Oppressed in Egypt

(Exodus 1:8–22)
15
Jacob went down into Egypt and he died, himself and our fathers;
16
and they were brought back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham bought for a price in silver from the children of Hamor of Shechem.
17
But as the time of the promise came close which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt,
18
until there arose a different king who didn’t know Joseph.
19
The same took advantage of our race and mistreated our fathers, and forced them to abandon their babies, so that they wouldn’t stay alive.

The Birth and Adoption of Moses

(Exodus 2:1–10; Hebrews 11:23–29)
20
At that time Moses was born, and was exceedingly handsome to God. He was nourished three months in his father’s house.
21
When he was abandoned, Pharaoh’s daughter took him up and reared him as her own son.
22
Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. He was mighty in his words and works.

The Rejection and Flight of Moses

(Exodus 2:11–22)
23
But when he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers,(c) the children of Israel.
24
Seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him and avenged him who was oppressed, striking the Egyptian.
25
He supposed that his brothers understood that God, by his hand, was giving them deliverance; but they didn’t understand.
26
The day following, he appeared to them as they fought, and urged them to be at peace again, saying, ‘Sirs, you are brothers. Why do you wrong one another?’
27
But he who did his neighbor wrong 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?’(d)
29
Moses fled at this saying, and became a stranger in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.

The Call of Moses

(Exodus 3:1–22)
30
When forty years were fulfilled, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush.
31
When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight. As he came close to see, the voice of the Lord came to him,
32
I am the God of your fathers: the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’(e) Moses trembled and dared not look.
33
The Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you stand is holy ground.
34
I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their groaning. I have come down to deliver them. Now come, I will send you into Egypt.’(f)
35
This Moses whom they refused, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’—God has sent him as both a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.
36
This man led them out, having worked wonders and signs in Egypt, in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years.
37
This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, ‘The Lord our God will raise up a prophet for you from among your brothers, like me.’(g) (h)
38
This is he who was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel that spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, who received living revelations to give to us,

The Rebellion of Israel

(Exodus 32:1–35; Deuteronomy 9:7–29; Amos 5:16–27)
39
to whom our fathers wouldn’t be obedient, but rejected him and turned back in their hearts to Egypt,
40
saying to Aaron, ‘Make us gods that will go before us, for as for this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what has become of him.’(i)
41
They made a calf in those days, and brought a sacrifice to the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their hands.
42
But God turned away and gave them up to serve the army of the sky,(j) as it is written in the book of the prophets,Did you offer to me slain animals and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?
43
You took up the tabernacle of Moloch, the star of your god Rephan, the figures which you made to worship, so I will carry you away (k) beyond Babylon.’

The Tabernacle of the Testimony

(Exodus 40:1–33; Hebrews 9:1–10)
44
Our fathers had the tabernacle of the testimony in the wilderness, even as he who spoke to Moses commanded him to make it according to the pattern that he had seen;
45
which also our fathers, in their turn, brought in with Joshua when they entered into the possession of the nations whom God drove out before the face of our fathers to the days of David,
46
who found favor in the sight of God, and asked to find a habitation for the God of Jacob.
47
But Solomon built him a house.
48
However, the Most High doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says,
49
heaven is my throne, and the earth a footstool for my feet. What kind of house will you build me?’ says the Lord.Or what is the place of my rest?
50
Didn’t my hand make all these things?’(l)
51
You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit! As your fathers did, so you do.
52
Which of the prophets didn’t your fathers persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, of whom you have now become betrayers and murderers.
53
You received the law as it was ordained by angels, and didn’t keep it!”

The Stoning of Stephen

54
Now when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth.
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 at the right hand of God!”
57
But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears, then rushed at him with one accord.
58
They threw him out of the city and stoned him. The witnesses placed their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.
59
They stoned Stephen as he called out, saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!”
60
He kneeled down and cried with a loud voice, “Lord, don’t hold this sin against them!” When he had said this, he fell asleep.

Footnotes

(a)7:3 ℘ Genesis 12:1
(b)7:7 ℘ Genesis 15:13-14
(c)7:23 The word for “brothers” here and where the context allows may be also correctly translated “brothers and sisters” or “siblings.”
(d)7:28 ℘ Exodus 2:14
(e)7:32 ℘ Exodus 3:6
(f)7:34 ℘ Exodus 3:5,7-8,10
(g)7:37 TR adds “You shall listen to him.”
(h)7:37 ℘ Deuteronomy 18:15
(i)7:40 ℘ Exodus 32:1
(j)7:42 This idiom could also be translated “host of heaven”, or “angelic beings”, or “heavenly bodies.”
(k)7:43 ℘ Amos 5:25-27
(l)7:50 ℘ Isaiah 66:1-2