Stephen’s Speech to the Sanhedrin
Acts 7The high priest said, “Are these things true?”
“Brothers and fathers,” he replied, “Y’all must listen to me: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, and said to him, ‘Leave your land and your relatives, and come into a land I will show you.’+Gen 12:1 Then he left the land of the Chaldaeans and settled in Haran. From there, when his father died, God moved him to this land where y’all now live. Hᴇ didn’t gave him an inheritance in it, not even ground for his foot. But ʜᴇ promised to give it to him as a possession, and to his descendants after him, though his child did not yet exist. God spoke in this way: for four hundred years his descendants would live as foreigners in a strange land, and that they would be enslaved and mistreated. But ‘I will judge the ethnic group they are enslaved to,’ God said, ‘and after that, they will come out and worship me in this place.’+Gen 15:13-14 Then ʜᴇ gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision, and so he 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.
“The patriarchs burned with jealousy against Joseph, and they sold him into Egypt. But God was with him and rescued him out of all his afflictions. Hᴇ gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who appointed him ruler over Egypt and all his house. Now a famine and great suffering came over all of Egypt and Canaan, and our ancestors could not find food. When Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our ancestors there the first time. On the second visit, Joseph revealed himself to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to Pharaoh. Then Joseph sent word and invited his father Jacob and all his relatives, seventy-five souls, and Jacob went down to Egypt. He and our ancestors died there, and they were brought back to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham purchased in silver from the sons of Hamor of Shechem.
“But as the time of the promise which God had given to Abraham drew near, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt, until ‘a different king who didn’t know Joseph, ruled in Egypt.’+Exo 1:8 He exploited our people and oppressed our ancestors, forcing them to abandon their babies, so that they wouldn’t survive.
“At that time Moses was born, and he was extraordinary in God’s sight. For three months, he was nurtured in his father’s home, and when he had been abandoned, Pharaoh’s daughter took him and nurtured him as her own son. Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was powerful in speech words and in his actions.
“But when he was forty years old, it entered his heart to visit his siblings, the children of Israel. When he saw one of them being treated unjustly, he defended him and avenged the oppressed man by striking down the Egyptian. Moses assumed that his people would understood that, through him, God was granting them deliverance, but they didn’t understand.
“The next day, he appeared to them while they were fighting, and tried to make peace between them by saying, ‘Men, y’all are brothers. Why are y’all hurting each another?’
“But the one who was unjustly treating his neighbor pushed Moses away and said, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you want to kill me like you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’+Exo 2:14
“When he heard this, Moses fled the land of Midian where he became foreigner and the father of two sons.
“After forty years had passed, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of a burning bush. When Moses saw it, he marveled at the sight. As he came approached to look more closely, the voice of the Lord came, ‘I am the God of your ancestors: the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’+Exo 3:6 Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look. The Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. I have surely seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt.’+Exo 3:7-8:10
“This Moses whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’ God sent as both a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and for forty years in the wilderness. This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, ‘God will raise up a prophet like me for y’all from among your* people.’+Deut 18:15 This is the one who was in the assembly in the wilderness, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors. He received living words to give to us,
“But our ancestors were unwilling to obey him. Instead, they rejected him and turned back to Egypt in their hearts, saying to Aaron, ‘Make us gods that will go before us. As for this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what has become of him.’+Exo 32:1 In those days, they made an idol in the form of a calf, and brought a sacrifice to it and rejoiced in the works of their hands. But God turned away and gave them over to worship the stars of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets,
‘House of Israel, for forty years in the wilderness, was it to me that y’all brought offerings and sacrifices? Y’all took along the tabernacle of Moloch, the star of y’all’s god Rephan, the figures y’all made to worship. Therefore I send y’all into exile’+Amos 5:25-27 beyond Babylon.“Our ancestors had the tabernacle of the testimony in the wilderness, just as God who spoke to Moses commanded him to make it according to the design he had seen. Our ancestors, having received the tabernacle, brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed from the ethnic groups whom God drove out before the face of them until the days of David, who found favor in God’s sight and asked that he might find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. But it was Solomon who built a house for ʜɪᴍ. However, the Most High doesn’t dwell in handmade structures. As the prophet says,
‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth a footstool for my feet. What kind of house will y’all build me?’ says the Lord. ‘Or what will be my resting place? Weren’t all these things made by my hand?’+Isa 66:1-2“Y’all stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! Y’all are always resisting the Holy Spirit, just like your* ancestors did. Which one of the prophets didn’t y’all’s ancestors persecute? They even killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers y’all have now become! Y’all received the law as it was ordained by angels, but y’all didn’t keep it!”
Stephen’s Execution by Saul
When they heard these things, their hearts were split open with rage, and they gnashed their teeth at him. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Humanity standing at the right hand of God!”
But they covered their ears, and cried out with loud voices, they all surged against him. They dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. The witnesses laid their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they stoned him, Stephen called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!” Then he fell to his knees and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, don’t hold this sin against them!” When he had said this, he fell asleep.