Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven residing in Jerusalem.

This is the reason I do my best to always have a clear conscience toward God and toward people.

For David says about him, ‘I saw the Lord always in front of me, for he is at my right hand so that I will not be shaken.

He was a devout, God-fearing man, as was all his household; he did many acts of charity for the people and prayed to God regularly.

From one man he made every nation of the human race to inhabit the entire earth, determining their set times and the fixed limits of the places where they would live,

The proposal pleased the entire group, so they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, with Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas, a Gentile convert to Judaism from Antioch.

and said, “You who are full of all deceit and all wrongdoing, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness – will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord?