Jesus

God exalted Him to His right hand as Prince and Savior, in order to grant repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel.

We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him.”

At this, they yielded to Gamaliel. They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and released them.

The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing that they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.

Every day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they did not stop teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ.

For we have heard him say that Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs that Moses handed down to us.”

He gave him no inheritance here, not even a foot of ground. But God promised to give possession of the land to Abraham and his descendants, even though he did not yet have a child.

‘But I will punish the nation that enslaves them,’ God said, ‘and afterward they will come forth and worship Me in this place.’

Then God gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision, and Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day. And Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs.

After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai.

When Moses saw it, he marveled at the sight. As he approached to look more closely, the voice of the Lord came to him:

Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.

This Moses, whom they had rejected with the words, ‘Who made you ruler and judge?’ is the one whom God sent to be their ruler and redeemer through the angel who appeared to him in the bush.

This is the same Moses who told the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers.’

He was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. And he received living words to pass on to us.

But God turned away from them and gave them over to the worship of the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: ‘Did you bring Me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?

Our fathers had the tabernacle of the Testimony with them in the wilderness. It was constructed exactly as God had directed Moses, according to the pattern he had seen.

But it was Solomon who built the house for Him.

However, the Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands. As the prophet says:

‘Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool. What kind of house will you build for Me, says the Lord, or where will My place of repose be?

Has not My hand made all these things?’

But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked intently into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

“Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

While they were stoning him, Stephen appealed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”

Falling on his knees, he cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.