A Chosen People^(A)

7 “When the Lord your God brings you into the land which you go to ^(B)possess, and has cast out many ^(C)nations before you, ^(D)the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you, ² and when the Lord your God delivers ^(E)them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. ^(F)You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them. ^3 (G)Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. ⁴ For they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods; ^(H)so the anger of the Lord will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly. ⁵ But thus you shall deal with them: you shall ^(I)destroy their altars, and break down their sacred pillars, and cut down their ^[a]wooden images, and burn their carved images with fire.

⁶ “For you are a ^[b]holy people to the Lord your God; ^(J)the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. ⁷ The Lord did not set His ^(K)love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were ^(L)the least of all peoples; ⁸ but ^(M)because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep ^(N)the oath which He swore to your fathers, ^(O)the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of ^[c]bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

⁹ “Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, ^(P)the faithful God ^(Q)who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments; ¹⁰ and He repays those who hate Him to their face, to destroy them. He will not ^[d]be ^(R)slack with him who hates Him; He will repay him to his face. ¹¹ Therefore you shall keep the commandment, the statutes, and the judgments which I command you today, to observe them.

³⁵ “This Moses whom they rejected, saying, ^(A)‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’ is the one God sent to be a ruler and a deliverer ^(B)by the hand of the Angel who appeared to him in the bush. ^36 (C)He brought them out, after he had ^(D)shown wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, ^(E)and in the Red Sea, ^(F)and in the wilderness forty years.

Israel Rebels Against God

³⁷ “This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, ^(G)‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. ^(H)Him^[a] you shall hear.’

^38 (I)“This is he who was in the ^[b]congregation in the wilderness with ^(J)the Angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, ^(K)the one who received the living ^(L)oracles^[c] to give to us, ³⁹ whom our fathers ^(M)would not obey, but rejected. And in their hearts they turned back to Egypt, ^40 (N)saying to Aaron, ‘Make us gods to go before us; as for this Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ ^41 (O)And they made a calf in those days, offered sacrifices to the idol, and ^(P)rejoiced in the works of their own hands. ⁴² Then ^(Q)God turned and gave them up to worship ^(R)the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the Prophets:

God’s True Tabernacle

⁴⁴ “Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as He appointed, instructing Moses ^(U)to make it according to the pattern that he had seen, ^45 (V)which our fathers, having received it in turn, also brought with Joshua into the land possessed by the Gentiles, ^(W)whom God drove out before the face of our fathers until the ^(X)days of David, ^46 (Y)who found favor before God and ^(Z)asked to find a dwelling for the God of Jacob. ^47 (AA)But Solomon built Him a house.

⁴⁸ “However, ^(AB)the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says:

Israel Resists the Holy Spirit

⁵¹ “You ^(AE)stiff-necked^[d] and ^(AF)uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. ^52 (AG)Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of ^(AH)the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers, ^53 (AI)who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it.”

Stephen the Martyr

^54 (AJ)When they heard these things they were ^[e]cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth. ⁵⁵ But he, ^(AK)being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the ^(AL)glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, ⁵⁶ and said, “Look! ^(AM)I see the heavens opened and the ^(AN)Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”

⁵⁷ Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord; ⁵⁸ and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And ^(AO)the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. ⁵⁹ And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, “Lord Jesus, ^(AP)receive my spirit.” ⁶⁰ Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, ^(AQ)“Lord, do not charge them with this sin.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

Saul Persecutes the Church

8 Now Saul was consenting to his death.

At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and ^(AR)they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. ² And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and ^(AS)made great lamentation over him.

³ As for Saul, ^(AT)he made havoc of the church, entering every house, and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison.

Christ Is Preached in Samaria

⁴ Therefore ^(AU)those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word.

Blessings of Obedience^(A)

¹² “Then it shall come to pass, because you listen to these judgments, and keep and do them, that the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and the mercy which He swore to your fathers. ¹³ And He will ^(B)love you and bless you and ^[a]multiply you; ^(C)He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flock, in the land of which He ^[b]swore to your fathers to give you. ¹⁴ You shall be blessed above all peoples; there shall not be a male or female ^(D)barren among you or among your livestock. ¹⁵ And the Lord will take away from you all sickness, and will afflict you with none of the ^(E)terrible diseases of Egypt which you have known, but will lay them on all those who hate you. ¹⁶ Also you shall ^[c]destroy all the peoples whom the Lord your God delivers over to you; your eye shall have no pity on them; nor shall you serve their gods, for that will ^(F)be a snare to you.

¹⁷ “If you should say in your heart, ‘These nations are greater than I; how can I dispossess them?’— ¹⁸ you shall not be afraid of them, but you shall ^(G)remember well what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt: ^19 (H)the great trials which your eyes saw, the signs and the wonders, the mighty hand and the outstretched arm, by which the Lord your God brought you out. So shall the Lord your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. ^20 (I)Moreover the Lord your God will send the hornet among them until those who are left, who hide themselves from you, are destroyed. ²¹ You shall not be terrified of them; for the Lord your God, the great and awesome God, is among you. ²² And the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you ^(J)little by little; you will be unable to ^[d]destroy them at once, lest the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. ²³ But the Lord your God will deliver them over to you, and will inflict defeat upon them until they are destroyed. ²⁴ And ^(K)He will deliver their kings into your hand, and you will destroy their name from under heaven; ^(L)no one shall be able to stand ^[e]against you until you have destroyed them. ²⁵ You shall burn the carved images of their gods with fire; you shall not ^(M)covet^[f] the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, lest you be snared by it; for it is an abomination to the Lord your God. ²⁶ Nor shall you bring an abomination into your house, lest you be doomed to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest it and utterly abhor it, ^(N)for it is an ^[g]accursed thing.

Christ Is Preached in Samaria

⁴ Therefore ^(A)those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word. ⁵ Then ^(B)Philip went down to ^[a]the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them. ⁶ And the multitudes with one accord heeded the things spoken by Philip, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. ⁷ For ^(C)unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice, came out of many who were possessed; and many who were paralyzed and lame were healed. ⁸ And there was great joy in that city.

The Sorcerer’s Profession of Faith

⁹ But there was a certain man called Simon, who previously ^(D)practiced ^[b]sorcery in the city and ^(E)astonished the ^[c]people of Samaria, claiming that he was someone great, ¹⁰ to whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, “This man is the great power of God.” ¹¹ And they heeded him because he had astonished them with his ^[d]sorceries for a long time. ¹² But when they believed Philip as he preached the things ^(F)concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, both men and women were baptized. ¹³ Then Simon himself also believed; and when he was baptized he continued with Philip, and was amazed, seeing the miracles and signs which were done.

The Sorcerer’s Sin

¹⁴ Now when the ^(G)apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them, ¹⁵ who, when they had come down, prayed for them ^(H)that they might receive the Holy Spirit. ¹⁶ For ^(I)as yet He had fallen upon none of them. ^(J)They had only been baptized in ^(K)the name of the Lord Jesus. ¹⁷ Then ^(L)they laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

¹⁸ And when Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money, ¹⁹ saying, “Give me this power also, that anyone on whom I lay hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”

²⁰ But Peter said to him, “Your money perish with you, because ^(M)you thought that ^(N)the gift of God could be purchased with money! ²¹ You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your ^(O)heart is not right in the sight of God. ²² Repent therefore of this your wickedness, and pray God ^(P)if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you. ²³ For I see that you are ^(Q)poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity.”

²⁴ Then Simon answered and said, ^(R)“Pray to the Lord for me, that none of the things which you have spoken may come upon me.”

²⁵ So when they had testified and preached the word of the Lord, they returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans.