Acts 7:2-53
So he replied,“ Brothers and fathers, listen to me. The God of glory appeared to our forefather Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he settled in Haran,and said to him,‘ Go out from your country and from your relatives, and come to the land I will show you.’Then he went out from the country of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After his father died, God made him move to this country where you now live.He did not give any of it to him for an inheritance, not even a foot of ground, yet God promised to give it to him as his possession, and to his descendants after him, even though Abraham as yet had no child.But God spoke as follows:‘ Your descendants will be foreigners in a foreign country, whose citizens will enslave them and mistreat them for four hundred years.But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves,’ said God,‘ and after these things they will come out of there and worship me in this place.’Then God gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision, and so he became the father of Isaac and circumcised him when he was eight days old, and Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs.The patriarchs, because they were jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt. But God was with him,and rescued him from all his troubles, and granted him favor and wisdom in the presence of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt and over all his household.Then a famine occurred throughout Egypt and Canaan, causing great suffering, and our ancestors could not find food.So when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our ancestors there the first time.On their second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers again, and Joseph’s family became known to Pharaoh.So Joseph sent a message and invited his father Jacob and all his relatives to come, seventy- five people in all.So Jacob went down to Egypt and died there, along with our ancestors,and their bones were later moved to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a certain sum of money from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.“ But as the time drew near for God to fulfill the promise he had declared to Abraham, the people increased greatly in number in Egypt,until another king who did not know about Joseph ruled over Egypt.This was the one who exploited our people and was cruel to our ancestors, forcing them to abandon their infants so they would die.At that time Moses was born, and he was beautiful to God. For three months he was brought up in his father’s house,and when he had been abandoned, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son.So Moses was trained in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in his words and deeds.But when he was about forty years old, it entered his mind to visit his fellow countrymen the Israelites.When he saw one of them being hurt unfairly, Moses came to his defense and avenged the person who was mistreated by striking down the Egyptian.He thought his own people would understand that God was delivering them through him, but they did not understand.The next day Moses saw two men fighting, and tried to make peace between them, saying,‘ Men, you are brothers; why are you hurting one another?’But the man who was unfairly hurting his neighbor pushed Moses aside, saying,‘ Who made you a ruler and judge over us?You don’t want to kill me the way you killed the Egyptian yesterday, do you?’When the man said this, Moses fled and became a foreigner in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.“ After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the desert of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning bush.When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight, and when he approached to investigate, there came the voice of the Lord,‘ I am the God of your forefathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ Moses began to tremble and did not dare to look more closely.But the Lord said to him,‘ Take the sandals off your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.I have certainly seen the suffering of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to rescue them. Now come, I will send you to Egypt.’This same Moses they had rejected, saying,‘ Who made you a ruler and judge?’ God sent as both ruler and deliverer through the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.This man led them out, performing wonders and miraculous signs in the land of Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years.This is the Moses who said to the Israelites,‘ God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers.’This is the man who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors, and he received living oracles to give to you.Our ancestors were unwilling to obey him, but pushed him aside and turned back to Egypt in their hearts,saying to Aaron,‘ Make us gods who will go in front of us, for this Moses, who led us out of the land of Egypt– we do not know what has happened to him!’At that time they made an idol in the form of a calf, brought a sacrifice to the idol, and began rejoicing in the works of their hands.But God turned away from them and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets:‘ It was not to me that you offered slain animals and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, was it, house of Israel?But you took along the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of the god Rephan, the images you made to worship, but I will deport you beyond Babylon.’Our ancestors had the tabernacle of testimony in the wilderness, just as God who spoke to Moses ordered him to make it according to the design he had seen.Our ancestors received possession of it and brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our ancestors, until the time of David.He found favor with God and asked that he could find a dwelling place for the house of Jacob.But Solomon built a house for him.Yet the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands, as the prophet says,‘ Heaven is my throne, and earth is the footstool for my feet. What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord, or what is my resting place?Did my hand not make all these things?’“ You stubborn people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are always resisting the Holy Spirit, like your ancestors did!Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold long ago the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become!You received the law by decrees given by angels, but you did not obey it.”
Acts 26:1-32
So Agrippa said to Paul,“ You have permission to speak for yourself.” Then Paul held out his hand and began his defense:“ Regarding all the things I have been accused of by the Jews, King Agrippa, I consider myself fortunate that I am about to make my defense before you today,because you are especially familiar with all the customs and controversial issues of the Jews. Therefore I ask you to listen to me patiently.Now all the Jews know the way I lived from my youth, spending my life from the beginning among my own people and in Jerusalem.They know, because they have known me from time past, if they are willing to testify, that according to the strictest party of our religion, I lived as a Pharisee.And now I stand here on trial because of my hope in the promise made by God to our ancestors,a promise that our twelve tribes hope to attain as they earnestly serve God night and day. Concerning this hope the Jews are accusing me, Your Majesty!Why do you people think it is unbelievable that God raises the dead?Of course, I myself was convinced that it was necessary to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus the Nazarene.And that is what I did in Jerusalem: Not only did I lock up many of the saints in prisons by the authority I received from the chief priests, but I also cast my vote against them when they were sentenced to death.I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to force them to blaspheme. Because I was so furiously enraged at them, I went to persecute them even in foreign cities.“ While doing this very thing, as I was going to Damascus with authority and complete power from the chief priests,about noon along the road, Your Majesty, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining everywhere around me and those traveling with me.When we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic,‘ Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? You are hurting yourself by kicking against the goads.’So I said,‘ Who are you, Lord?’ And the Lord replied,‘ I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.But get up and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for this reason, to designate you in advance as a servant and witness to the things you have seen and to the things in which I will appear to you.I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles, to whom I am sending youto open their eyes so that they turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a share among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’“ Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision,but I declared to those in Damascus first, and then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds consistent with repentance.For this reason the Jews seized me in the temple courts and were trying to kill me.I have experienced help from God to this day, and so I stand testifying to both small and great, saying nothing except what the prophets and Moses said was going to happen:that the Christ was to suffer and be the first to rise from the dead, to proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles.”As Paul was saying these things in his defense, Festus exclaimed loudly,“ You have lost your mind, Paul! Your great learning is driving you insane!”But Paul replied,“ I have not lost my mind, most excellent Festus, but am speaking true and rational words.For the king knows about these things, and I am speaking freely to him, because I cannot believe that any of these things has escaped his notice, for this was not done in a corner.Do you believe the prophets, King Agrippa? I know that you believe.”Agrippa said to Paul,“ In such a short time are you persuading me to become a Christian?”Paul replied,“ I pray to God that whether in a short or a long time not only you but also all those who are listening to me today could become such as I am, except for these chains.”So the king got up, and with him the governor and Bernice and those sitting with them,and as they were leaving they said to one another,“ This man is not doing anything deserving death or imprisonment.”Agrippa said to Festus,“ This man could have been released if he had not appealed to Caesar.”
