Acts 7:33–50

33 “Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.r 34 I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt.’g s

35 “This is the same Moses they had rejected with the words, ‘Who made you ruler and judge?’t He was sent to be their ruler and deliverer by God himself, through the angel who appeared to him in the bush. 36 He led them out of Egyptu and performed wonders and signsv in Egypt, at the Red Seaw and for forty years in the wilderness.x

37 “This is the Moses who told the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your own people.’h y 38 He was in the assembly in the wilderness, with the angelz who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors;a and he received living wordsb to pass on to us.c

39 “But our ancestors refused to obey him. Instead, they rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt.d 40 They told Aaron, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who led us out of Egypt—we don’t know what has happened to him!’i e 41 That was the time they made an idol in the form of a calf. They brought sacrifices to it and reveled in what their own hands had made.f 42 But God turned away from themg and gave them over to the worship of the sun, moon and stars.h This agrees with what is written in the book of the prophets:

“ ‘Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings

forty years in the wilderness, people of Israel?

43 You have taken up the tabernacle of Molek

and the star of your god Rephan,

the idols you made to worship.

Therefore I will send you into exile’j i beyond Babylon.

44 “Our ancestors had the tabernacle of the covenant lawj with them in the wilderness. It had been made as God directed Moses, according to the pattern he had seen.k 45 After receiving the tabernacle, our ancestors under Joshua brought it with them when they took the land from the nations God drove out before them.l It remained in the land until the time of David,m 46 who enjoyed God’s favor and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.k n 47 But it was Solomon who built a house for him.o

48 “However, the Most Highp does not live in houses made by human hands.q As the prophet says:

49 “ ‘Heaven is my throne,

and the earth is my footstool.r

What kind of house will you build for me?

says the Lord.

Or where will my resting place be?

50 Has not my hand made all these things?’l s