Acts 7 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Then the asked, "Is this true?"
Stephen replied: "Brothers and fathers, listen to me. The God of appeared to our ancestor while he was still in before he moved to Haran.
God told him, 'Leave your country and your people, and go to a land I will show you.'
So Abraham left the land of the and settled in Haran. After his father died, God moved him from there to this land where you're living now.
God didn't give him any here — not even a foot of ground. But God promised to give it to him as a possession, and to his descendants after him, even though Abraham had no child at the time.
God told him that his descendants would be strangers in a foreign country, and that the people there would enslave them and mistreat them for four hundred years.
'But I will judge the nation that enslaves them,' God said, 'and afterward they will come out of that country and me in this place.'
Then God gave Abraham the of So when Abraham became the father of Isaac, he circumcised him on the eighth day. Isaac did the same for Jacob, and Jacob for the twelve
The patriarchs were jealous of so they sold him into slavery in Egypt. But God was with him
and rescued him from all his troubles. God gave Joseph and wisdom in the eyes of king of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt and his entire household.
Then a famine struck all of Egypt and bringing terrible suffering, and our ancestors couldn't find food.
When Jacob heard there was grain in Egypt, he sent our ancestors on their first trip there.
On their second visit, Joseph revealed who he was to his brothers, and Pharaoh learned about Joseph's family.
Then Joseph sent for his father Jacob and his whole family — seventy-five people in all.
So Jacob went down to Egypt. He and our ancestors died there,
and their bodies were brought back to and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought from the sons of Hamor at for a sum of silver.
As the time drew near for God to fulfill the promise he had made to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt had grown enormously.
Then a new king who knew nothing about Joseph came to power in Egypt.
He dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our ancestors, forcing them to abandon their newborn babies so they would die.
It was at this time that Moses was born — and he was no For three months he was cared for in his father's home.
When he was placed outside, Pharaoh's daughter took him and raised him as her own son.
Moses was educated in all the of the Egyptians and became powerful in both his words and actions.
When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his own people, the
He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defense and struck down the Egyptian, avenging the man who was being wronged.
Moses assumed his own people would understand that God was using him to them, but they didn't get it.
The next day Moses came across two Israelites fighting. He tried to them, saying, 'Men, you're brothers! Why are you hurting each other?'
But the man who was mistreating the other shoved Moses aside and said, 'Who made you ruler and judge over us?
Are you going to kill me like you killed the Egyptian yesterday?'
When Moses heard this, he fled to where he lived as a and had two sons.
After forty years had passed, a appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near
When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight. As he went closer to look, the voice of the Lord came to him:
'I am the God of your ancestors — the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.' Moses was shaking with fear and didn't dare to look.
Then the Lord told him, 'Take off your sandals — the place where you're standing is ground.
I have clearly seen how my people are being mistreated in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. Now come — I am sending you back to Egypt.'
This is the same Moses they had rejected with the words, 'Who made you ruler and judge?' He is the one God sent to be both ruler and with the help of the messenger who appeared to him in the bush.
He led them out, performing and in Egypt, at the and for forty years in the wilderness.
This is the Moses who told the Israelites, 'God will raise up for you a like me from your own people.'
He was in the in the wilderness, with the messenger who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors. He received to pass on to us.
But our ancestors refused to obey him. Instead, they pushed him away and in their hearts turned back to Egypt.
They told Aaron, 'Make us who will lead us. As for this Moses who led us out of Egypt — we don't know what happened to him!'
That was the time they made an in the shape of a calf. They brought sacrifices to it and threw a party to celebrate what their own hands had made.
But God turned away from them and handed them over to the in the sky. This is what's written in the book of the prophets: 'Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings during those forty years in the wilderness, people of Israel?
No! You carried along the tent of and the star of your god — the idols you made to worship. So I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.'
Our ancestors had the of with them in the wilderness. It was built exactly as God had directed Moses, following the pattern God had shown him.
Our ancestors who came after them brought it with them when they took the land from the nations God drove out ahead of It stayed there until David's time,
who with God and asked to provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.
But it was who actually built the house for him.
But the Most doesn't live in buildings made by human hands. As the prophet says:
'Heaven is my and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house could you build for me? says the Lord. Where would my resting place be?
Didn't my hand make all these things?'