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          DASV: Acts 7    

1 Then the high priest asked, "Are these things true?"
2 Stephen replied, "Brothers and fathers, listen, the God of
glory appeared to our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia,
before he lived in Haran.
3 He told him, 'Leave your country and your relatives, and go
to the land that I will show you.'
4 Then he came out of the land of the Chaldaeans and lived
in Haran. From there, after his father died, God had him
move into this land where you are now living.
5 He did not give him any of it for an inheritance, not even
enough to set his foot down on. God promised that he would
give it to him for a possession, and to his descendants after
him, even when he was childless.
6 God spoke concerning this, that his descendants would sojourn
in a foreign land, and that residents there would enslave
and oppress them for four hundred years.
7 'The nation that they will be in bondage to I will judge,'
God said, 'and after that they will come out and serve me in
this place.'
8 Then he gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision. So he
became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day.
Then Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the
father of the twelve patriarchs.

9 The patriarchs, being jealous of Joseph, sold him to Egypt,
but God was with him.
10 He rescued him out of all his troubles, and gave him favor
and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt; and he made him
governor over Egypt including his whole household.
11 Now there was a famine over all Egypt and Canaan, causing
great misery, and our forefathers could find no food.
12 But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he
sent our forefathers the first time.
13 On their second trip Joseph revealed himself to his brothers,
and Joseph's family background became known to Pharaoh.
14 Then Joseph sent and called for Jacob his father, and all
his relatives, totaling seventy-five people.
15 So Jacob went down to Egypt, and he died there as did our
forefathers.
16 Later they were carried back to Shechem, and laid in the tomb
that Abraham had purchased for some silver from the sons of
Hamor in Shechem.
17 But as the time for the promise drew near which God had
sworn to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt.
18 Then there arose another king over Egypt who knew nothing
about Joseph.
19 He dealt shrewdly with our people, and mistreated our
forefathers, forcing them to expose their babies so that
they would not live.
20 At that time Moses was born, and was beautiful to God. He
was taken care of for three months in his father's house.
21 When he was left outside, Pharaoh's daughter adopted him,
and cared for him as her own son.
22 So Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians;
and he was mighty in his words and deeds.
23 But when he was forty years old, it came into his heart to
visit his relatives, the children of Israel.
24 After seeing one of them being treated unjustly, he defended
him, and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian.
25 Now he assumed that his brothers would have understood that
God was rescuing them by his hand, but they did not understand.
26 The next day he came across two of them fighting, and tried
to reconcile them, saying, 'Men, you are brothers; why are you
hurting each other?'
27 But he who was harming his neighbor pushed Moses away, saying,
'Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?
28 Are you going to kill me, like you killed the Egyptian yesterday?'

29 Hearing this Moses fled, and became a foreigner in the land
of Midian, where he had two sons.
30 After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in
the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning bush.
31 When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight, and as he
approached to take a closer look, there came a voice from the
Lord,
32 'I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob.' Moses trembled, and did not dare to look.
33 Then the Lord said to him, 'Take the sandals off your feet,
for the place you are standing is holy ground.
34 I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt,
and have heard their groaning, and I am come down to rescue them.
Now come for I will send you into Egypt.'
35 God sent this Moses whom they refused, objecting, 'Who made
you a ruler and a judge?' to be both a ruler and a deliverer
by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.
36 This one led them forth, having performed wonders and
miraculous signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the
wilderness for forty years.
37 This is that Moses, who said to the people of Israel, 'God
will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers.'
38 This is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness with
the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, along with our
forefathers. He received living oracles to give to us.

39 Our forefathers refused to obey, but pushed him aside, and
in their hearts, turned back to Egypt.
40 They told 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 happened to him.'
41 In those days they made a calf, and brought a sacrifice to the
idol, and rejoiced in this, the work of their hands.
42 But God turned away and gave them up to serve the host of heaven,
as it is written in the book of the prophets, 'Did you offer me
slain animals and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness,
O house of Israel?
43 No, you took along the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of
the god Rephan, and the idols you made to worship them. So I will
deport you beyond Babylon.'

44 Our forefathers had the tabernacle of the testimony in the
wilderness, just as God, who spoke to Moses, directed him to make
it, according to the pattern he had seen.
45 Our forefathers in turn, brought it in with Joshua when they
dispossessed the nations that God drove out before the face of
our forefathers. It was there until the days of David.
46 He found favor in the sight of God, and asked to build a dwelling
for the God of Jacob.
47 But Solomon built him a house.
48 Yet the Most High does not live in houses made with hands.
As the prophet says,
49 'Heaven is my throne, and the earth is the footstool for my feet.
What kind of house will you build for me?' says the Lord,
'Or what is the place of my rest?
50 Didn't my hand make all these things?'
51 You are stubborn and uncircumcised in heart and ears. You
always resist the Holy Spirit, just like your forefathers did.
52 Which of the prophets did your forefathers not persecute?
They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One;
of whom you have now become betrayers and murderers.
53 You received the law as it was given by angels, but you
have not kept it."

54 Now when they heard these things, they were furious, and
they gnashed their teeth at him.
55 But Stephen, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadily
into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on
the right hand of God.
56 He exclaimed, "Look, I see the heavens opened, and the Son
of Man standing on the right hand of God."
57 But they, covering their ears and screaming, they rushed
at him with one intent.
58 They dragged him out of the city, and began to stone him.
The witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man
named Saul.
59 As they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, "Lord Jesus,
receive my spirit."
60 Then he knelt down and cried with a loud voice, "Lord,
don't hold this sin against them." When he had said this,
he fell asleep.

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