Beginning

Stephen’s Speech

7 The high priest said to Stephen, “Are these things true?”

² Stephen answered, “Brothers and fathers, listen to me. Our glorious God appeared to Abraham, our ancestor. Abraham was in Mesopotamia before he lived in Haran. ³ God said to Abraham, ‘Leave your country and your relatives. Go to the land I will show you.’^{[a] 4} So Abraham left the country of Chaldea and went to live in Haran. After Abraham’s father died, God sent him to this place where you now live. ⁵ God did not give Abraham any of this land, not even a foot of it. But God promised that he would give him and his descendants this land. (This was before Abraham had any descendants.) ⁶ This is what God said to him: ‘Your descendants will be strangers in a land they don’t own. The people there will make them slaves. And they will do cruel things to them for 400 years. ⁷ But I will punish the nation where they are slaves. Then your descendants will leave that land. Then they will worship me in this place.’^{[b] 8} God made an agreement with Abraham; the sign for this agreement was circumcision. And so when Abraham had his son Isaac, Abraham circumcised him when he was eight days old. Isaac also circumcised his son Jacob. And Jacob did the same for his sons, the 12 ancestors^[c] of our people.

⁹ “These sons became jealous of Joseph. They sold him to be a slave in Egypt. But God was with him. ¹⁰ Joseph had many troubles there, but God saved him from all those troubles. The king of Egypt liked Joseph and respected him because of the wisdom that God gave him. The king made him governor of Egypt. He put Joseph in charge of all the people in his palace.

¹¹ “Then all the land of Egypt and of Canaan became so dry that nothing would grow there. This made the people suffer very much. The sons could not find anything to eat. ¹² But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent his sons, our ancestors, there. This was their first trip to Egypt. ¹³ Then they went there a second time. This time, Joseph told his brothers who he was. And the king learned about Joseph’s family. ¹⁴ Then Joseph sent some men to invite Jacob, his father, to come to Egypt. He also invited all his relatives (75 persons altogether). ¹⁵ So Jacob went down to Egypt, where he and his sons died. ¹⁶ Later their bodies were moved to Shechem and put in a grave there. (It was the same grave that Abraham had bought in Shechem from the sons of Hamor for a sum of money.)

¹⁷ “The number of people in Egypt grew large. There were more and more of our people there. (The promise that God made to Abraham was soon to come true.) ¹⁸ Then a new king began to rule Egypt. He did not know who Joseph was. ¹⁹ This king tricked our people and was cruel to our ancestors. He forced them to put their babies outside to die. ²⁰ This was the time when Moses was born. He was a fine child. For three months Moses was cared for in his father’s house. ²¹ When they put Moses outside, the king’s daughter took him. She raised him as if he were her own son. ²² The Egyptians taught Moses all the things they knew. He was a powerful man in the things he said and did.

²³ “When Moses was about 40 years old, he thought it would be good to visit his brothers, the people of Israel. ²⁴ Moses saw an Egyptian doing wrong to a Jew. So he defended the Jew and punished the Egyptian for hurting him. Moses killed the Egyptian. ²⁵ Moses thought that his fellow Jews would understand that God was using him to save them. But they did not understand. ²⁶ The next day, Moses saw two Jewish men fighting. He tried to make peace between them. He said, ‘Men, you are brothers! Why are you hurting each other?’ ²⁷ The man who was hurting the other man pushed Moses away. He said, ‘Who made you our ruler and judge? ²⁸ Are you going to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’^{[d] 29} When Moses heard him say this, he left Egypt. He went to live in the land of Midian where he was a stranger. While Moses lived in Midian, he had two sons.

³⁰ “After 40 years Moses was in the desert near Mount Sinai. An angel appeared to him in the flames of a burning bush. ³¹ When Moses saw this, he was amazed. He went near to look closer at it. Moses heard the Lord’s voice. ³² The Lord said, ‘I am the God of your ancestors. I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.’^[e] Moses began to shake with fear and was afraid to look. ³³ The Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals. You are standing on holy ground. ³⁴ I have seen the troubles my people have suffered in Egypt. I have heard their cries. I have come down to save them. And now, Moses, I am sending you back to Egypt.’^[f]

³⁵ “This Moses was the same man the Jews said they did not want. They had said to him, ‘Who made you our ruler and judge?’^[g] Moses is the same man God sent to be a ruler and savior, with the help of an angel. This was the angel Moses saw in the burning bush. ³⁶ So Moses led the people out of Egypt. He worked miracles and signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and then in the desert for 40 years. ³⁷ This is the same Moses that said to the Jewish people: ‘God will give you a prophet like me. He will be one of your own people.’^{[h] 38} This is the same Moses who was with the gathering of the Jews in the desert. He was with the angel that spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and he was with our ancestors. He received commands from God that give life, and he gave those commands to us.

³⁹ “But our fathers did not want to obey Moses. They rejected him. They wanted to go back to Egypt again. ⁴⁰ They said to Aaron, ‘Moses led us out of Egypt. But we don’t know what has happened to him. So make us gods who will lead us.’^{[i] 41} So the people made an idol that looked like a calf. Then they brought sacrifices to it. The people were proud of what they had made with their own hands! ⁴² But God turned against them. He did not try to stop them from worshiping the sun, moon and stars. This is what is written in the book of the prophets: God says,

⁴⁴ “The Holy Tent where God spoke to our fathers was with the Jews in the desert. God told Moses how to make this Tent. He made it like the plan God showed him. ⁴⁵ Later, Joshua led our fathers to capture the lands of the other nations. Our people went in, and God drove the other people out. When our people went into this new land, they took with them this same Tent. They received this Tent from their fathers and kept it until the time of David. ⁴⁶ God was very pleased with David. He asked God to let him build a house for him, the God of Jacob.^{[j] 47} But Solomon was the one who built the Temple.

⁴⁸ “But the Most High does not live in houses that men build with their hands. This is what the prophet says:

⁵¹ Stephen continued speaking: “You stubborn Jewish leaders! You have not given your hearts to God! You won’t listen to him! You are always against what the Holy Spirit is trying to tell you. Your ancestors were like this, and you are just like them! ⁵² Your fathers tried to hurt every prophet who ever lived. Those prophets said long ago that the Righteous One would come. But your fathers killed them. And now you have turned against the Righteous One and killed him. ⁵³ You received the law of Moses, which God gave you through his angels. But you don’t obey it!”

Stephen Is Killed

⁵⁴ When the leaders heard Stephen saying all these things, they became very angry. They were so mad that they were grinding their teeth at Stephen. ⁵⁵ But Stephen was full of the Holy Spirit. He looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God. He saw Jesus standing at God’s right side. ⁵⁶ He said, “Look! I see heaven open. And I see the Son of Man standing at God’s right side!”

⁵⁷ Then they all shouted loudly. They covered their ears with their hands and all ran at Stephen. ⁵⁸ They took him out of the city and threw stones at him until he was dead. The men who told lies against Stephen left their coats with a young man named Saul. ⁵⁹ While they were throwing stones, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!” ⁶⁰ He fell on his knees and cried in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” After Stephen said this, he died.

8 Saul agreed that the killing of Stephen was a good thing.

Trouble for the Believers

^2-3 Some religious men buried Stephen. They cried very loudly for him. On that day people began trying to hurt the church in Jerusalem and make it suffer. Saul was also trying to destroy the church. He went from house to house. He dragged out men and women and put them in jail. All the believers, except the apostles, went to different places in Judea and Samaria. ⁴ And everywhere the believers were scattered, they told people the Good News.

Philip Preaches in Samaria

⁵ Philip^[k] went to the city^[l] of Samaria and preached about the Christ. ⁶ The people there heard Philip and saw the miracles he was doing. They all listened carefully to the things he said. ⁷ Many of these people had evil spirits in them. But Philip made the evil spirits leave them. The spirits made a loud noise when they came out. There were also many weak and crippled people there. Philip healed them, too. ⁸ So the people in that city were very happy.

⁹ But there was a man named Simon in that city. Before Philip came there, Simon had practiced magic. He amazed all the people of Samaria with his magic. He bragged and called himself a great man. ¹⁰ All the people—the least important and the most important—paid attention to what Simon said. They said, “This man has the power of God, called ‘the Great Power’!” ¹¹ Simon had amazed them with his magic tricks so long that the people became his followers. ¹² But Philip told them the Good News about the kingdom of God and the power of Jesus Christ. Men and women believed Philip and were baptized. ¹³ Simon himself believed and was baptized. He stayed very close to Philip. When he saw the miracles and the very powerful things that Philip did, Simon was amazed.

¹⁴ The apostles were still in Jerusalem. They heard that the people of Samaria had accepted the word of God. So they sent Peter and John to them. ¹⁵ When Peter and John arrived, they prayed that the Samaritan believers might receive the Holy Spirit. ¹⁶ These people had been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. But the Holy Spirit had not yet entered any of them. ¹⁷ Then, when the two apostles began laying their hands on^[m] the people, they received the Holy Spirit.

¹⁸ Simon saw that the Spirit was given to people when the apostles laid their hands on them. So he offered the apostles money. ¹⁹ He said, “Give me also this power so that when I lay my hands on a person, he will receive the Holy Spirit.”

²⁰ Peter said to him, “You and your money should both be destroyed! You thought you could buy God’s gift with money. ²¹ You cannot share with us in this work. Your heart is not right before God. ²² Change your heart! Turn away from this evil thing you have done. Pray to the Lord. Maybe he will forgive you for thinking this. ²³ I see that you are full of bitter jealousy and ruled by sin.”

²⁴ Simon answered, “Both of you pray for me to the Lord. Pray that the things you have said will not happen to me!”

²⁵ Then the two apostles told the people the things they had seen Jesus do. And after the apostles had given the message of the Lord, they went back to Jerusalem. On the way, they went through many Samaritan towns and preached the Good News to the people.

Philip Teaches an Ethiopian

²⁶ An angel of the Lord spoke to Philip.^[n] The angel said, “Get ready and go south. Go to the road that leads down to Gaza from Jerusalem—the desert road.” ²⁷ So Philip got ready and went. On the road he saw a man from Ethiopia, a eunuch. He was an important officer in the service of Candace, the queen of the Ethiopians. He was responsible for taking care of all her money. He had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and ²⁸ now he was on his way home. He was sitting in his chariot and reading from the book of Isaiah, the prophet. ²⁹ The Spirit said to Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”

³⁰ So Philip ran toward the chariot. He heard the man reading from Isaiah, the prophet. Philip asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?”

³¹ He answered, “How can I understand? I need someone to explain it to me!” Then he invited Philip to climb in and sit with him. ³² The verse of Scripture that he was reading was this:

³⁴ The officer said to Philip, “Please tell me, who is the prophet talking about? Is he talking about himself or about someone else?” ³⁵ Philip began to speak. He started with this same Scripture and told the man the Good News about Jesus.

³⁶ While they were traveling down the road, they came to some water. The officer said, “Look! Here is water! What is stopping me from being baptized?” ³⁷ [Philip answered, “If you believe with all your heart, you can.” The officer said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”]^{[o] 38} Then the officer commanded the chariot to stop. Both Philip and the officer went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. ³⁹ When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord took Philip away; the officer never saw him again. The officer continued on his way home, full of joy. ⁴⁰ But Philip appeared in a city called Azotus and preached the Good News in all the towns on the way from Azotus to Caesarea.