⁸Stephen was richly blessed by God who gave him the power to do great miracles and signs among the people. ⁹But some people were against him. They belonged to the synagogue of Free Men ⁿ (as it was called), which included people from Cyrene, Alexandria, Cilicia, and Asia. They all came and argued with Stephen.

¹⁰But the Spirit was helping him to speak with wisdom, and his words were so strong that they could not argue with him. ¹¹So they secretly urged some men to say, “We heard Stephen speak against Moses and against God.”

¹²This upset the people, the elders, and the teachers of the law. They came and grabbed Stephen and brought him to a meeting of the leaders. ¹³They brought in some people to tell lies about Stephen, saying, “This man is always speaking against this holy place and the law of Moses. ¹⁴We heard him say that Jesus from Nazareth will destroy this place and that Jesus will change the customs Moses gave us.” ¹⁵All the people in the meeting were watching Stephen closely and saw that his face looked like the face of an angel.

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Footnotes

nFree Men Jewish people who had been slaves or whose fathers had been slaves, but were now free.