Then the high priest
asked him, "Are these charges true?"
To this he replied: "Brothers and fathers, listen to me!
The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still
in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran. Leave your country and
your people,' God said, 'and go to the land I will show you.'
So he left the
land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After the death of his
father, God sent him to this land where you are now living. He gave
him no inheritance here, not even a foot of ground. But God promised
him that he and his descendants after him would possess the land,
even though at that time Abraham had no child.
God spoke to him in this way: "Your descendants
will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be
enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will punish the
nation they serve as slaves," God said, "and afterward
they will come out of that country and worship me in this place."
Then he gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision. And Abraham
became the father of Isaac and circumcised him eight days after his
birth. Later Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the
father of the twelve patriarchs.
Because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, they
sold him as a slave into Egypt. But God was with him and rescued him
from all his troubles. He gave Joseph wisdom and enabled him to gain
the goodwill of Pharaoh king of Egypt; so he made him ruler over
Egypt and all his palace.
Then a famine struck all Egypt and Canaan, bringing
great suffering, and our fathers could not find food. When Jacob
heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our fathers on their
first visit.
On their second
visit, Joseph told his brothers who he was, and Pharaoh learned
about Joseph's family. After this, Joseph sent for his father Jacob
and his whole family, seventy-five in all. Then Jacob went down to
Egypt, where he and our fathers died. Their bodies were brought back
to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought from the
sons of Hamor at Shechem for a certain sum of money.
As the time drew
near for God to fulfill his promise to Abraham, the number of our
people in Egypt greatly increased. Then another king, who knew
nothing about Joseph, became ruler of Egypt. He dealt treacherously
with our people and oppressed our forefathers by forcing them to
throw out their newborn babies so that they would die.
At that time Moses was born, and he was no ordinary
child. For three months he was cared for in his father's house. When
he was placed outside, Pharaoh's daughter took him and brought him
up as her own son. Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the
Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.
When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his
fellow Israelites. He saw one of them being mistreated by an
Egyptian, so he went to his defense and avenged him by killing the
Egyptian. Moses thought that his own people would realize that God
was using him to rescue them, but they did not. The next day Moses
came upon two Israelites who were fighting. He tried to reconcile
them by saying, 'Men, you are brothers; why do you want to hurt each
other?'
But the man who was mistreating the other pushed Moses
aside and said, 'Who made you ruler and judge over us? "Do you
want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?" When
Moses heard this, he fled to Midian, where he settled as a foreigner
and had two sons.
After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to
Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount
Sinai. When he saw this, he was amazed at the sight. As he went over
to look more closely, he heard the Lord's voice: "I am the God
of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." Moses
trembled with fear and did not dare to look.
Then the Lord said to him, "Take off your sandals;
the place where you are standing is holy ground. I have indeed seen
the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning
and have come down to set them free. Now come, I will send you back
to Egypt."
This is the same Moses whom they had rejected
with the words, "'Who made you ruler and judge?"' He was
sent to be their ruler and deliverer by God himself, through the
angel who appeared to him in the bush. He led them out of Egypt and
did wonders and miraculous signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea and for
forty years in the desert.
This is that Moses who told the Israelites, "God
will send you a prophet like me from your own people." He was
in the assembly in the desert, with the angel who spoke to him on
Mount Sinai, and with our fathers; and he received living words to
pass on to us.
But our fathers refused to obey him. Instead, they
rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt. They told
Aaron, "Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow
Moses who led us out of Egypt—we don't know what has happened to
him!" That was the time they made an idol in the form of a
calf. They brought sacrifices to it and held a celebration in honor
of what their hands had made. But God turned away and gave them over
to the worship of the heavenly bodies. This agrees with what is
written in the book of the prophets:
"Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings
forty years in the desert, O house of Israel? You have lifted up the
shrine of Molech and the star of your god Rephan, the idols you made
to worship. Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Babylon."
Our forefathers had the tabernacle of the Testimony
with them in the desert. It had been made as God directed Moses,
according to the pattern he had seen. Having received the
tabernacle, our fathers under Joshua brought it with them when they
took the land from the nations God drove out before them. It
remained in the land until the time of David, who enjoyed God's
favor and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God
of Jacob. But it was Solomon who built the house for him.
However, the Most High does not live in houses made by
men. As the prophet says: 'Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my
footstool. What kind of house will you build for me? says the Lord.
Or where will my resting place be? Has not my hand made all these
things?"
You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and
ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy
Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute?
They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous
One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him— you who have
received the law that was put into effect through angels but have
not obeyed it.
When they heard this, they were furious and gnashed
their teeth at him. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up
to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right
hand of God. "Look," he said, "I see heaven open and
the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God."
At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top
of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city
and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes
at the feet of a young man named Saul.
While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, "Lord
Jesus, receive my spirit." Then he fell on his knees and cried
out, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." When he
had said this, he fell asleep.