Acts 7
Open in the reader1Then the high priest asked Crown, “Are these charges true?”
2And Crown declared: “Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Father-of-a-Multitude while he was still in Between-the-Rivers, before he lived in Parched,
3and told him, ‘Leave your country and your kindred and go to the land I will show you.’
4So Father-of-a-Multitude left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Parched. After his father died, God brought him out of that place and into this land where you are now living.
5He gave him no inheritance here, not even a foot of ground. But God promised to give possession of the land to Father-of-a-Multitude and his descendants, even though he did not yet have a child.
6God told him that his descendants would be foreigners in a strange land, and that they would be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years.
7‘But I will punish the nation that enslaves them,’ God said, ‘and afterward they will come forth and worship Me in this place.’
8Then God gave Father-of-a-Multitude the covenant of circumcision, and Father-of-a-Multitude became the father of He-Laughs and circumcised him on the eighth day. And He-Laughs became the father of Heel-Grabber, and Heel-Grabber of the twelve patriarchs.
9Because the patriarchs were jealous of Josech, they sold him as a slave into Two-Straits. But God was with him
10and rescued him from all his troubles. He granted May-He-Add favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh king of Two-Straits, who appointed him ruler over Two-Straits and all his household.
11Then famine and great suffering swept across Two-Straits and Humbled, and our fathers could not find food.
12When Heel-Grabber heard that there was grain in Two-Straits, he sent our fathers on their first visit.
13On their second visit, Josech revealed his identity to his brothers, and his family became known to Pharaoh.
14Then Josech sent for his father Heel-Grabber and all his relatives, seventy-five in all.
15So Heel-Grabber went down to Two-Straits, where he and our fathers died.
16Their bones were carried back to Shoulder and placed in the tomb that Father-of-a-Multitude had bought from the sons of Hamor at Shoulder for a price he paid in silver.
17As the time drew near for God to fulfill His promise to Father-of-a-Multitude, our people in Two-Straits increased greatly in number.
18Then another king, who knew nothing of Josech, arose over Two-Straits.
19He exploited our people and oppressed our fathers, forcing them to abandon their infants so they would die.
20At that time Drawn-Out was born, and he was beautiful in the sight of God. For three months he was nurtured in his father’s house.
21When he was set outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him and brought him up as her own son.
22So Drawn-Out was educated in all the wisdom of the Two-Straits-Ones and was powerful in speech and action.
23When Drawn-Out was forty years old, he decided to visit his brothers, the children of He-Strives-with-God.
24And when he saw one of them being mistreated, Drawn-Out went to his defense and avenged him by striking down the Two-Straits-One who was oppressing him.
25He assumed his brothers would understand that God was using him to deliver them, but they did not.
26The next day he came upon two Israelites who were fighting, and he tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why are you mistreating each other?’
27But the man who was abusing his neighbor pushed Drawn-Out aside and said, ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us?
28Do you want to kill me as you killed the Two-Straits-One yesterday?’
29At this remark, Drawn-Out fled to the land of Strife, where he lived as a foreigner and had two sons.
30After forty years had passed, a messenger appeared to Drawn-Out in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai.
31When Drawn-Out saw it, he marveled at the sight. As he approached to look more closely, the voice of the Lord came to him:
32‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Father-of-a-Multitude, He-Laughs, and Heel-Grabber.’ Drawn-Out trembled with fear and did not dare to look.
33Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is devoted ground.
34I have indeed seen the oppression of My people in Two-Straits. I have heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them. Now come, I will send you back to Two-Straits.’
35This Drawn-Out, whom they had rejected with the words, ‘Who made you ruler and judge?’ is the one whom God sent to be their ruler and redeemer through the messenger who appeared to him in the bush.
36He led them out and performed wonders and signs in the land of Two-Straits, at the Red Sea, and for forty years in the wilderness.
37This is the same Drawn-Out who told the children of He-Strives-with-God, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers.’
38He was in the assembly in the wilderness with the messenger who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. And he received living words to pass on to us.
39But our fathers refused to obey him. Instead, they rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Two-Straits.
40They said to Aaron, ‘Make us gods who will go before us! As for this Drawn-Out who led us out of the land of Two-Straits, we do not know what has happened to him.’
41At that time they made a calf and offered a sacrifice to the idol, rejoicing in the works of their hands.
42But God turned away from them and gave them over to the worship of the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: ‘Did you bring Me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the wilderness, O house of He-Strives-with-God?
43You have taken along the Dwelling of The-King and the star of your God Rephan, the idols you made to worship. Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Confusion.’
44Our fathers had the Dwelling of the Testimony with them in the wilderness. It was constructed exactly as God had directed Drawn-Out, according to the pattern he had seen.
45And our fathers who received it brought it in with He-Who-Is-Saves when they dispossessed the nations God drove out before them. It remained until the time of Beloved,
46who found favor in the sight of God and asked to provide a dwelling place for the God of Heel-Grabber.
47But it was Peace who built the house for Him.
48However, the Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands. As the prophet says:
49‘Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool. What kind of house will you build for Me, says the Lord, or where will My place of repose be?
50Has not My hand made all these things?’
51You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You always resist the Devoted Spirit, just as your fathers did.
52Which of the prophets did your fathers fail to persecute? They even killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One. And now you are His betrayers and murderers—
53you who received the teaching ordained by messengers, yet have not kept it.”
54On hearing this, the members of the Sanhedrin were enraged, and they gnashed their teeth at him.
55But Crown, full of the Devoted Spirit, looked intently into heaven and saw the glory of God and He-Who-Is-Saves standing at the right hand of God.
56“Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
57At this they covered their ears, cried out in a loud voice, and rushed together at him.
58They dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile the witnesses laid their garments at the feet of a young man named Asked-For.
59While they were stoning him, Crown appealed, “Lord He-Who-Is-Saves, receive my spirit.”
60Falling on his knees, he cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.