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Text -- Acts 7:1-52 (NET)
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Context
Stephen’s Defense Before the Council
7:1 Then the high priest said , “Are these things true?”
7:2 So he replied , “Brothers and fathers , listen to me. The God of glory appeared to our forefather Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia , before he settled in Haran ,
7:3 and said to him , ‘Go out from your country and from your relatives , and come to the land I will show you .’
7:4 Then he went out from the country of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran . After his father died , God made him move to this country where you now live .
7:5 He did not give any of it to him for an inheritance , not even a foot of ground, yet God promised to give it to him as his possession , and to his descendants after him , even though Abraham as yet had no child .
7:6 But God spoke as follows: ‘Your descendants will be foreigners in a foreign country , whose citizens will enslave them and mistreat them for four hundred years .
7:7 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves ,’ said God , ‘and after these things they will come out of there and worship me in this place .’
7:8 Then God gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision , and so he became the father of Isaac and circumcised him when he was eight days old, and Isaac became the father of Jacob , and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs .
7:9 The patriarchs , because they were jealous of Joseph , sold him into Egypt . But God was with him ,
7:10 and rescued him from all his troubles , and granted him favor and wisdom in the presence of Pharaoh , king of Egypt , who made him ruler over Egypt and over all his household .
7:11 Then a famine occurred throughout Egypt and Canaan , causing great suffering , and our ancestors could not find food .
7:12 So when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt , he sent our ancestors there the first time.
7:13 On their second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers again, and Joseph’s family became known to Pharaoh .
7:14 So Joseph sent a message and invited his father Jacob and all his relatives to come, seventy-five people in all.
7:15 So Jacob went down to Egypt and died there, along with our ancestors ,
7:16 and their bones were later moved to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a certain sum of money from the sons of Hamor in Shechem .
7:17 “But as the time drew near for God to fulfill the promise he had declared to Abraham , the people increased greatly in number in Egypt ,
7:18 until another king who did not know about Joseph ruled over Egypt .
7:19 This was the one who exploited our people and was cruel to our ancestors , forcing them to abandon their infants so they would die . die .
7:20 At that time Moses was born , and he was beautiful to God . For three months he was brought up in his father’s house ,
7:21 and when he had been abandoned , Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son .
7:22 So Moses was trained in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in his words and deeds .
7:23 But when he was about forty years old , it entered his mind to visit his fellow countrymen the Israelites .
7:24 When he saw one of them being hurt unfairly , Moses came to his defense and avenged the person who was mistreated by striking down the Egyptian .
7:25 He thought his own people would understand that God was delivering them through him , but they did not understand .
7:26 The next day Moses saw two men fighting , and tried to make peace between them , saying , ‘Men , you are brothers ; why are you hurting one another ?’
7:27 But the man who was unfairly hurting his neighbor pushed Moses aside , saying , ‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us ?
7:28 You don’t want to kill me the way you killed the Egyptian yesterday , do you?’
7:29 When the man said this , Moses fled and became a foreigner in the land of Midian , where he became the father of two sons .
7:30 “After forty years had passed , an angel appeared to him in the desert of Mount Sinai , in the flame of a burning bush .
7:31 When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight , and when he approached to investigate , there came the voice of the Lord ,
7:32 ‘I am the God of your forefathers , the God of Abraham , Isaac , and Jacob .’ Moses began to tremble and did not dare to look more closely .
7:33 But the Lord said to him , ‘Take the sandals off your feet , for the place where you are standing is holy ground .
7:34 I have certainly seen the suffering of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their groaning , and I have come down to rescue them . Now come , I will send you to Egypt .’
7:35 This same Moses they had rejected , saying , ‘Who made you a ruler and judge ?’ God sent as both ruler and deliverer through the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush .
7:36 This man led them out , performing wonders and miraculous signs in the land of Egypt , at the Red Sea , and in the wilderness for forty years .
7:37 This is the Moses who said to the Israelites , ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers .’
7:38 This is the man who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai , and with our ancestors , and he received living oracles to give to you .
7:39 Our ancestors were unwilling unwilling to obey him, but pushed him aside and turned back to Egypt in their hearts ,
7:40 saying to Aaron , ‘Make us gods who will go in front of us , for this Moses , who led us out of the land of Egypt –we do not know what has happened to him !’
7:41 At that time they made an idol in the form of a calf , brought a sacrifice to the idol , and began rejoicing in the works of their hands .
7:42 But God turned away from them and gave them over to worship the host of heaven , as it is written in the book of the prophets : ‘It was not to me that you offered slain animals and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness , was it, house of Israel ?
7:43 But you took along the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of the god Rephan , the images you made to worship , but I will deport you beyond Babylon .’
7:44 Our ancestors had the tabernacle of testimony in the wilderness , just as God who spoke to Moses ordered him to make it according to the design he had seen .
7:45 Our ancestors received possession of it and brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our ancestors , until the time of David .
7:46 He found favor with God and asked that he could find a dwelling place for the house of Jacob .
7:47 But Solomon built a house for him .
7:48 Yet the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands , as the prophet says ,
7:49 ‘Heaven is my throne , and earth is the footstool for my feet . What kind of house will you build for me , says the Lord , or what is my resting place ?
7:50 Did my hand not make all these things ?’
7:51 “You stubborn people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears ! You are always resisting the Holy Spirit , like your ancestors did!
7:52 Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute ? They killed those who foretold long ago the coming of the Righteous One , whose betrayers and murderers you have now become !
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Cross Reference (TSK)
ITL
Names, People and Places, Dictionary Themes and Topics
Names, People and Places:
Dictionary Themes and Topics:
Persecution |
Stephen |
Defense |
Jerusalem |
Priest |
Court |
Government |
Readings, Select |
DOCTRINE |
Quotations and Allusions |
Moses |
Israel |
ANGEL OF THE LORD |
God |
Jacob |
Abraham |
Mark, Gospel according to |
Obedience |
CHARRAN |
Apostasy |
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