Good News [1976], GOOD NEWS BIBLE WITH DEUTEROCANONICALS / APOCRYPHA Today's English Version (AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY, New York) [word count] [B15000].
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Stephen's Speech
1 The High Priest asked Stephen,
“Is this true?”
2 Stephen answered, “Brothers
and fathers, listen to me! Before our
ancestor Abraham had gone to live
in Haran, the God of glory appeared
to him in Mesopotamia
3 and said to
him, ‘Leave your family and country
and go to the land that I will show
you.’ note
4 And so he left his country and
went to live in Haran. After Abraham's
father died, God made him
move to this land where you now
live. note
5 God did not then give Abraham
any part of it as his own, not
even a square foot of ground, but
God promised to give it to him, and
that it would belong to him and to
his descendants. At the time God
made this promise, Abraham had no
children. note
6 This is what God said to
him: ‘Your descendants will live in a
foreign country, where they will be
slaves and will be badly treated for
four hundred years.
7 But I will pass
judgment on the people that they
will serve, and afterward they will
come out of that country and will
worship me in this place.’ note note
8 Then
God gave to Abraham the ceremony
of circumcision as a sign of the covenant.
So Abraham circumcised
Isaac a week after he was born;
Isaac circumcised his son Jacob, and
Jacob circumcised his twelve sons,
the famous ancestors of our race. note
9 “Jacob's sons became jealous of
their brother Joseph and sold him to
be a slave in Egypt. But God was
with him note
10 and brought him safely
through all his troubles. When
Joseph appeared before the king of
Egypt, God gave him a pleasing
manner and wisdom, and the king
made Joseph governor over the
country and the royal household. note
11 Then there was a famine all over
Egypt and Canaan, which caused
much suffering. Our ancestors could
not find any food, note
12 and when Jacob
heard that there was grain in Egypt,
he sent his sons, our ancestors, on
their first visit there.
13 On the second
visit Joseph made himself
known to his brothers, and the king
of Egypt came to know about Joseph's
family. note
14 So Joseph sent a
message to his father Jacob, telling
him and the whole family, seventy-five
people in all, to come to Egypt. note
15 Then Jacob went to Egypt, where
he and his sons died. note
16 Their bodies
were taken to Shechem, where they
were buried in the grave which
Abraham had bought from the clan
of Hamor for a sum of money. note
17 “When the time drew near for
God to keep the promise he had
made to Abraham, the number of
our people in Egypt had grown
much larger.
18 At last a king who
did not know about Joseph began to
rule in Egypt. note
19 He tricked our ancestors
and was cruel to them, forcing
them to put their babies out of
their homes, so that they would die. note
20 It was at this time that Moses was
born, a very beautiful child. He was
cared for at home for three months, note
21 and when he was put out of his
home, the king's daughter adopted
him and brought him up as her own
son. note
22 He was taught all the wisdom
of the Egyptians and became a great
man in words and deeds.
23 “When Moses was forty years
old, he decided to find out how his
fellow Israelites were being treated.
24 He saw one of them being mistreated
by an Egyptian, so he went
to his help and took revenge on the
Egyptian by killing him.
25 (He
thought that his own people would
-- --
understand that God was going to
use him to set them free, but they
did not understand.)
26 The next day
he saw two Israelites fighting, and
he tried to make peace between
them. ‘Listen, men,’ he said, ‘you are
fellow Israelites; why are you fighting
like this?’
27 But the one who was
mistreating the other pushed Moses
aside. ‘Who made you ruler and
judge over us?’ he asked.
28 ‘Do you
want to kill me, just as you killed
that Egyptian yesterday?’
29 When
Moses heard this, he fled from Egypt
and went to live in the land of Midian.
There he had two sons. note note
30 “After forty years had passed,
an angel appeared to Moses in the
flames of a burning bush in the desert
near Mount Sinai.
31 Moses was
amazed by what he saw, and went
near the bush to get a better look.
But he heard the Lord's voice:
32 ‘I
am the God of your ancestors, the
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’
Moses trembled with fear and dared
not look.
33 The Lord said to him,
‘Take your sandals off, for the place
where you are standing is holy
ground.
34 I have seen the cruel suffering
of my people in Egypt. I have
heard their groans, and I have come
down to set them free. Come now; I
will send you to Egypt.’ note
35 “Moses is the one who was rejected
by the people of Israel. ‘Who
made you ruler and judge over us?’
they asked. He is the one whom God
sent to rule the people and set them
free with the help of the angel who
appeared to him in the burning bush. note
36 He led the people out of Egypt,
performing miracles and wonders in
Egypt and at the Red Sea and for
forty years in the desert. note
37 Moses is
the one who said to the people of Israel,
‘God will send you a prophet,
just as he sent me, note and he will be
one of your own people.’ note
38 He is the
one who was with the people of Israel
assembled in the desert; he was
there with our ancestors and with
the angel who spoke to him on
Mount Sinai, and he received God's
living messages to pass on to us. note
39 “But our ancestors refused to
obey him; they pushed him aside
and wished that they could go back
to Egypt.
40 So they said to Aaron,
‘Make us some gods who will lead
us. We do not know what has happened
to that man Moses, who
brought us out of Egypt.’ note
41 It was
then that they made an idol in the
shape of a bull, offered sacrifice to it,
and had a feast in honor of what
they themselves had made. note
42 So God
turned away from them and gave
them over to worship the stars of
heaven, as it is written in the book of
the prophets:
‘People of Israel! It was not to me
that you slaughtered and sacrificed animals
for forty years in the desert.
43
It was the tent of the god Molech that you carried,
and the image of Rephan, your star god;
they were idols that you had made to worship.
And so I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.’ note
44 “Our ancestors had the Covenant
Tent with them in the desert.
It had been made as God had told
Moses to make it, according to the
pattern that Moses had been shown. note
45 Later on, our ancestors who received
the tent from their fathers
carried it with them when they went
with Joshua and took over the land
from the nations that God drove out
as they advanced. And it stayed
there until the time of David. note
46 He
won God's favor and asked God to
allow him to provide a dwelling
place for the God of Jacob. note
47 But it
was Solomon who built him a house. note
48 “But the Most High God does
not live in houses built by men; as
the prophet says,
-- --
49
‘Heaven is my throne, says the Lord,
and the earth is my footstool.
What kind of house would you build for me?
Where is the place for me to live in?
50
Did not I myself make all these things?’ note
51 “How stubborn you are!” Stephen
went on to say. “How heathen
your hearts, how deaf you are to
God's message! You are just like
your ancestors: you too have always
resisted the Holy Spirit! note
52 Was there
any prophet that your ancestors did
not persecute? They killed God's
messengers, who long ago announced
the coming of his righteous
Servant. And now you have betrayed
and murdered him.
53 You are
the ones who received God's law,
that was handed down by angels—
yet you have not obeyed it!”
The Stoning of Stephen
54 As the members of the Council
listened to Stephen, they became furious
and ground their teeth at him
in anger.
55 But Stephen, full of the
Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and
saw God's glory and Jesus standing
at the right side of God.
56 “Look!”
he said. “I see heaven opened and
the Son of Man standing at the right
side of God!”
57 With a loud cry the Council
members covered their ears with
their hands. Then they all rushed at
him at once,
58 threw him out of the
city, and stoned him. The witnesses
left their cloaks in the care of a
young man named Saul.
59 They kept
on stoning Stephen as he called out
to the Lord, “Lord Jesus, receive my
spirit!”
60 He knelt down and cried
out in a loud voice, “Lord! Do not
remember this sin against them!” He
said this and died.
Good News [1976], GOOD NEWS BIBLE WITH DEUTEROCANONICALS / APOCRYPHA Today's English Version (AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY, New York) [word count] [B15000].
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