9 Yes!” he went on, “I tell you that there are some people standing here who will not experience death until they see the Kingdom of God come in a powerful way!”

² Six days later, Yeshua took Kefa, Ya‘akov and Yochanan and led them up a high mountain privately. As they watched, he began to change form, ³ and his clothes became dazzlingly white, whiter than anyone in the world could possibly bleach them. ⁴ Then they saw Eliyahu and Moshe speaking with Yeshua. ⁵ Kefa said to Yeshua, “It’s good that we’re here, Rabbi! Let’s put up three shelters — one for you, one for Moshe and one for Eliyahu.” ⁶ (He didn’t know what to say, they were so frightened.) ⁷ Then a cloud enveloped them; and a voice came out of the cloud, “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!” ⁸ Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Yeshua.

⁹ As they came down the mountain, he warned them not to tell anyone what they had seen until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. ¹⁰ So they kept the matter to themselves; but they continued asking each other, “What is this ‘rising from the dead’?”

¹⁴ He was expelling a demon that was mute. When the demon had gone out, the man who had been mute spoke; and the people were astounded. ¹⁵ But some of them said, “It is by Ba‘al-Zibbul” — the ruler of the demons — “that he expels the demons.” ¹⁶ And others, trying to trap him, demanded from him a sign from Heaven. ¹⁷ But he, knowing what they were thinking, said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, with one house collapsing on another. ¹⁸ So if the Adversary too is divided against himself, how can his kingdom survive? I’m asking because you claim it is by Ba‘al-Zibbul that I drive out the demons. ¹⁹ If I drive out demons by Ba‘al-Zibbul, by whom do your people drive them out? So, they will be your judges! ²⁰ But if I drive out demons by the finger of God,^[a] then the Kingdom of God has come upon you!

³⁵ “This Moshe, whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge?’ is the very one whom God sent as both ruler and ransomer by means of the angel that appeared to him in the thorn bush. ³⁶ This man led them out, performing miracles and signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years. ³⁷ This is the Moshe who said to the people of Isra’el, ‘God will raise up a prophet like me from among your brothers’^{[a] 38} This is the man who was in the assembly in the wilderness, accompanied by the angel that had spoken to him at Mount Sinai and by our fathers, the man who was given living words to pass on to us.

³⁹ “But our fathers did not want to obey him. On the contrary, they rejected him and in their hearts turned to Egypt, ⁴⁰ saying to Aharon, ‘Make us some gods to lead us; because this Moshe, who led us out of Egypt — we don’t know what has become of him.’^{[b] 41} That was when they made an idol in the shape of a calf and offered a sacrifice to it and held a celebration in honor of what they had made with their own hands. ⁴² So God turned away from them and gave them over to worship the stars^[c] — as has been written in the book of the prophets,

⁴⁴ “Our fathers had the Tent of Witness in the wilderness. It had been made just as God, who spoke to Moshe, had ordered it made, according to the pattern Moshe had seen. ⁴⁵ Later on, our fathers who had received it brought it in with Y’hoshua when they took the Land away from the nations that God drove out before them.

“So it was until the days of David. ⁴⁶ He enjoyed God’s favor and asked if he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Ya‘akov ⁴⁷ and Shlomo did build him a house. ⁴⁸ But Ha‘Elyon does not live in places made by hand! As the prophet says,

⁵¹ “Stiffnecked people,^[f] with uncircumcised hearts and ears!^[g] You continually oppose the Ruach HaKodesh!^[h] You do the same things your fathers did! ⁵² Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who told in advance about the coming of the Tzaddik, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers! — ⁵³ you! — who receive the Torah as having been delivered by angels — but do not keep it!”

⁵⁴ On hearing these things, they were cut to their hearts and ground their teeth at him. ⁵⁵ But he, full of the Ruach HaKodesh, looked up to heaven and saw God’s Sh’khinah, with Yeshua standing at the right hand of God. ⁵⁶ “Look!” he exclaimed, “I see heaven opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”^[i]

⁵⁷ At this, they began yelling at the top of their voices, so that they wouldn’t have to hear him; and with one accord, they rushed at him, ⁵⁸ threw him outside the city and began stoning him. And the witnesses laid down their coats at the feet of a young man named Sha’ul.

⁵⁹ As they were stoning him, Stephen called out to God, “Lord Yeshua! Receive my spirit!” ⁶⁰ Then he kneeled down and shouted out, “Lord! Don’t hold this sin against them!” With that, he died;

8 and Sha’ul gave his approval to his murder.

Starting with that day, there arose intense persecution against the Messianic Community in Yerushalayim; all but the emissaries were scattered throughout the regions of Y’hudah and Shomron.

10 For, brothers, I don’t want you to miss the significance of what happened to our fathers. All of them were guided by the pillar of cloud, and they all passed through the sea, ² and in connection with the cloud and with the sea they all immersed themselves into Moshe, ³ also they all ate the same food from the Spirit, ⁴ and they all drank the same drink from the Spirit — for they drank from a Spirit-sent Rock which followed them, and that Rock was the Messiah. ⁵ Yet with the majority of them God was not pleased, so their bodies were strewn across the desert.

⁶ Now these things took place as prefigurative historical events, warning us not to set our hearts on evil things as they did. ⁷ Don’t be idolaters, as some of them were — as the Tanakh puts it, “The people sat down to eat and drink, then got up to indulge in revelry.”^{[a] 8} And let us not engage in sexual immorality, as some of them did, with the consequence that 23,000 died in a single day. ⁹ And let us not put the Messiah to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by snakes. ¹⁰ And don’t grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the Destroying Angel.

¹¹ These things happened to them as prefigurative historical events, and they were written down as a warning to us who are living in the acharit-hayamim. ¹² Therefore, let anyone who thinks he is standing up be careful not to fall! ¹³ No temptation has seized you beyond what people normally experience, and God can be trusted not to allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear. On the contrary, along with the temptation he will also provide the way out, so that you will be able to endure.

3 Are we starting to recommend ourselves again? Or do we, like some, need letters of recommendation either to you or from you? ² You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. ³ You make it clear that you are a letter from the Messiah placed in our care, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on stone tablets but on human hearts.

⁴ Such is the confidence we have through the Messiah toward God. ⁵ It is not that we are competent in ourselves to count anything as having come from us; on the contrary, our competence is from God. ⁶ He has even made us competent to be workers serving a New Covenant, the essence of which is not a written text but the Spirit. For the written text brings death, but the Spirit gives life.

⁷ Now if that which worked death, by means of a written text engraved on stone tablets, came with glory — such glory that the people of Isra’el could not stand to look at Moshe’s face because of its brightness, even though that brightness was already fading away — ⁸ won’t the working of the Spirit be accompanied by even greater glory? ⁹ For if there was glory in what worked to declare people guilty, how much more must the glory abound in what works to declare people innocent! ¹⁰ In fact, by comparison with this greater glory, what was made glorious before has no glory now. ¹¹ For if there was glory in what faded away, how much more glory must there be in what lasts.

¹² Therefore, with a hope like this, we are very open — ¹³ unlike Moshe, who put a veil over his face, so that the people of Isra’el would not see the fading brightness come to an end.

¹⁴ What is more, their minds were made stonelike; for to this day the same veil remains over them when they read the Old Covenant; it has not been unveiled, because only by the Messiah is the veil taken away. ¹⁵ Yes, till today, whenever Moshe is read, a veil lies over their heart. ¹⁶ “But,” says the Torah, “whenever someone turns to Adonai, the veil is taken away.”^{[a] 17} Now, “Adonai” in this text means the Spirit. And where the Spirit of Adonai is, there is freedom. ¹⁸ So all of us, with faces unveiled, see as in a mirror the glory of the Lord; and we are being changed into his very image, from one degree of glory to the next, by Adonai the Spirit.

² and be like newborn babies, thirsty for the pure milk of the Word; so that by it, you may grow up into deliverance. ³ For you have tasted that Adonai is good.^[a]

⁴ As you come to him, the living stone, rejected by people but chosen by God and precious to him, ⁵ you yourselves, as living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be cohanim set apart for God to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to him through Yeshua the Messiah. ⁶ This is why the Tanakh says,

⁷ Now to you who keep trusting, he is precious. But to those who are not trusting,

⁸ also he is

They are stumbling at the Word, disobeying it — as had been planned. ⁹ But you are a chosen people,^[e] the King’s cohanim,^[f] a holy nation,^[g] a people for God to possess!^[h] Why? In order for you to declare the praises of the One who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. ¹⁰ Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; before, you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.^[i]

¹⁶ Therefore, openly acknowledge your sins to one another, and pray for each other, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. ¹⁷ Eliyahu was only a human being like us; yet he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and no rain fell on the Land for three years and six months. ¹⁸ Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the Land produced its crops.