Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

6 There is another serious tragedy I have seen under the sun, and it weighs heavily on humanity. ² God gives some people great wealth and honor and everything they could ever want, but then he doesn’t give them the chance to enjoy these things. They die, and someone else, even a stranger, ends up enjoying their wealth! This is meaningless—a sickening tragedy.

³ A man might have a hundred children and live to be very old. But if he finds no satisfaction in life and doesn’t even get a decent burial, it would have been better for him to be born dead. ⁴ His birth would have been meaningless, and he would have ended in darkness. He wouldn’t even have had a name, ⁵ and he would never have seen the sun or known of its existence. Yet he would have had more peace than in growing up to be an unhappy man. ⁶ He might live a thousand years twice over but still not find contentment. And since he must die like everyone else—well, what’s the use?

Stephen Addresses the Council

7 Then the high priest asked Stephen, “Are these accusations true?”

² This was Stephen’s reply: “Brothers and fathers, listen to me. Our glorious God appeared to our ancestor Abraham in Mesopotamia before he settled in Haran.^{[a] 3} God told him, ‘Leave your native land and your relatives, and come into the land that I will show you.’^{[b] 4} So Abraham left the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran until his father died. Then God brought him here to the land where you now live.

⁵ “But God gave him no inheritance here, not even one square foot of land. God did promise, however, that eventually the whole land would belong to Abraham and his descendants—even though he had no children yet. ⁶ God also told him that his descendants would live in a foreign land, where they would be oppressed as slaves for 400 years. ⁷ ‘But I will punish the nation that enslaves them,’ God said, ‘and in the end they will come out and worship me here in this place.’^[c]

⁸ “God also gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision at that time. So when Abraham became the father of Isaac, he circumcised him on the eighth day. And the practice was continued when Isaac became the father of Jacob, and when Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs of the Israelite nation.