Acts 7:1–29

Stephen Speaks in His Own Defense

¹Then the chief priest asked Stephen, “Is this true?” 

²Stephen answered, “Brothers and fathers, listen to me. The God who reveals his glory appeared to our ancestor Abraham in Mesopotamia. This happened before Abraham lived in Haran. ³God told him, ‘Leave your land and your relatives. Go to the land that I will show you.’ 

⁴“Then Abraham left the country of Chaldea and lived in the city of Haran. After his father died, God made him move from there to this land where we now live. 

⁵“Yet, God didn’t give Abraham anything in this land to call his own, not even a place to rest his feet. But God promised to give this land to him and to his descendants, even though Abraham didn’t have a child. ⁶God told Abraham that his descendants would be foreigners living in another country and that the people there would make them slaves and mistreat them for 400 years. ⁷God also told him, ‘I will punish the people whom they will serve. After that, they will leave that country and worship me here.’ 

⁸“God gave Abraham circumcision to confirm his promise.^aSo when Abraham’s son Isaac was born, Abraham circumcised him on the eighth day. Isaac did the same to his son Jacob, and Jacob did the same to his twelve sons (the ancestors of our tribes). 

⁹“Jacob’s sons were jealous of their brother Joseph. They sold him into slavery, and he was taken to Egypt. But God was with Joseph ¹⁰and rescued him from all his suffering. When Joseph stood in the presence of Pharaoh (the king of Egypt), God gave Joseph divine favor^band wisdom so that he became ruler of Egypt and of Pharaoh’s whole palace. ¹¹Then a famine throughout Egypt and Canaan brought a lot of suffering. Our ancestors couldn’t find any food. ¹²When Jacob heard that Egypt had food, he sent our ancestors there. That was their first trip. ¹³On the second trip, Joseph told his brothers who he was, and Pharaoh learned about Joseph’s family. ¹⁴Joseph sent for his father Jacob and his relatives, 75 people in all. ¹⁵So Jacob went to Egypt, and he and our ancestors died there. ¹⁶They were taken to Shechem for burial in the tomb that Abraham purchased in Shechem from Hamor’s sons. 

¹⁷“When the time that God had promised to Abraham had almost come, the number of our people in Egypt had grown very large. ¹⁸Then a different king, who knew nothing about Joseph, began to rule in Egypt. ¹⁹This king was shrewd in the way he took advantage of our people. He mistreated our ancestors. He made them abandon their newborn babies outdoors, where they would die. 

²⁰“At that time Moses was born, and he was a very beautiful child. His parents took care of him for three months. ²¹When Moses was abandoned outdoors, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and raised him as her son. ²²So Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and became a great man in what he said and did. ²³When he was 40 years old, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites. ²⁴When he saw an Israelite man being treated unfairly by an Egyptian, he defended the Israelite. He took revenge by killing the Egyptian. ²⁵Moses thought his own people would understand that God was going to use him to give them freedom. But they didn’t understand. ²⁶The next day Moses saw two Israelites fighting, and he tried to make peace between them. He said to them, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why are you treating each other unfairly?’ 

²⁷“But one of the men pushed Moses aside. He asked Moses, ‘Who made you our ruler and judge? ²⁸Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ ²⁹After he said that, Moses quickly left Egypt and lived in Midian as a foreigner. In Midian he fathered two sons.