Acts

司提反当众申诉

1大祭司就说：「这些事果然有吗？」

2司提反说：「诸位父兄请听！当日我们的祖宗亚伯拉罕在美索不达米亚还未住哈兰的时候，荣耀的 神向他显现，

3对他说：『你要离开本地和亲族，往我所要指示你的地方去。』

4他就离开迦勒底人之地，住在哈兰。他父亲死了以后， 神使他从那里搬到你们现在所住之地。

5在这地方， 神并没有给他产业，连立足之地也没有给他；但应许要将这地赐给他和他的后裔为业；那时他还没有儿子。

6神说：『他的后裔必寄居外邦，那里的人要叫他们作奴仆，苦待他们四百年。』

7神又说：『使他们作奴仆的那国，我要惩罚。以后他们要出来，在这地方事奉我。』

8神又赐他割礼的约。于是亚伯拉罕生了以撒，第八日给他行了割礼。以撒生雅各；雅各生十二位先祖。

9「先祖嫉妒约瑟，把他卖到埃及去； 神却与他同在，

10救他脱离一切苦难，又使他在埃及王法老面前得恩典，有智慧。法老就派他作埃及国的宰相兼管全家。

11后来埃及和迦南全地遭遇饥荒，大受艰难，我们的祖宗就绝了粮。

12雅各听见在埃及有粮，就打发我们的祖宗初次往那里去。

13第二次约瑟与弟兄们相认，他的亲族也被法老知道了。

14约瑟就打发弟兄请父亲雅各和全家七十五个人都来。

15于是雅各下了埃及，后来他和我们的祖宗都死在那里；

16又被带到示剑，葬于亚伯拉罕在示剑用银子从哈抹子孙买来的坟墓里。

17「及至 神应许亚伯拉罕的日期将到，以色列民在埃及兴盛众多，

18直到有不晓得约瑟的新王兴起。

19他用诡计待我们的宗族，苦害我们的祖宗，叫他们丢弃婴孩，使婴孩不能存活。

20那时，摩西生下来，俊美非凡，在他父亲家里抚养了三个月。

21他被丢弃的时候，法老的女儿拾了去，养为自己的儿子。

22摩西学了埃及人一切的学问，说话行事都有才能。

23「他将到四十岁，心中起意去看望他的弟兄以色列人；

24到了那里，见他们一个人受冤屈，就护庇他，为那受欺压的人报仇，打死了那埃及人。

25他以为弟兄必明白 神是借他的手搭救他们；他们却不明白。

26第二天，遇见两个以色列人争斗，就劝他们和睦，说：『你们二位是弟兄，为什么彼此欺负呢？』

27那欺负邻舍的把他推开，说：『谁立你作我们的首领和审判官呢？

28难道你要杀我，像昨天杀那埃及人吗？』

29摩西听见这话就逃走了，寄居于米甸；在那里生了两个儿子。

30「过了四十年，在西奈山的旷野，有一位天使从荆棘火焰中向摩西显现。

31摩西见了那异象，便觉希奇，正进前观看的时候，有主的声音说：

32『我是你列祖的 神，就是亚伯拉罕的 神，以撒的 神，雅各的 神。』摩西战战兢兢，不敢观看。

33主对他说：『把你脚上的鞋脱下来，因为你所站之地是圣地。

34我的百姓在埃及所受的困苦，我实在看见了，他们悲叹的声音，我也听见了。我下来要救他们。你来！我要差你往埃及去。』

35这摩西就是百姓弃绝说『谁立你作我们的首领和审判官』的； 神却借那在荆棘中显现之使者的手差派他作首领、作救赎的。

36这人领百姓出来，在埃及，在红海，在旷野，四十年间行了奇事神迹。

37那曾对以色列人说『 神要从你们弟兄中间给你们兴起一位先知像我』的，就是这位摩西。

38这人曾在旷野会中和西奈山上，与那对他说话的天使同在，又与我们的祖宗同在，并且领受活泼的圣言传给我们。

39我们的祖宗不肯听从，反弃绝他，心里归向埃及，

40对亚伦说：『你且为我们造些神像，在我们前面引路；因为领我们出埃及地的那个摩西，我们不知道他遭了什么事。』

41那时，他们造了一个牛犊，又拿祭物献给那像，欢喜自己手中的工作。

42神就转脸不顾，任凭他们事奉天上的日月星辰，正如先知书上所写的说：以色列家啊， 你们四十年间在旷野， 岂是将牺牲和祭物献给我吗？

43你们抬着摩洛的帐幕和理番神的星， 就是你们所造为要敬拜的像。 因此，我要把你们迁到巴比伦外去。

44「我们的祖宗在旷野，有法柜的帐幕，是 神吩咐摩西叫他照所看见的样式做的。

45这帐幕，我们的祖宗相继承受。当 神在他们面前赶出外邦人去的时候，他们同约书亚把帐幕搬进承受为业之地，直存到大卫的日子。

46大卫在 神面前蒙恩，祈求为雅各的 神预备居所；

47却是所罗门为 神造成殿宇。

48其实，至高者并不住人手所造的，就如先知所言：

49主说：天是我的座位，地是我的脚凳； 你们要为我造何等的殿宇？ 哪里是我安息的地方呢？

50这一切不都是我手所造的吗？

51「你们这硬着颈项、心与耳未受割礼的人，常时抗拒圣灵！你们的祖宗怎样，你们也怎样。

52哪一个先知不是你们祖宗逼迫呢？他们也把预先传说那义者要来的人杀了；如今你们又把那义者卖了，杀了。

53你们受了天使所传的律法，竟不遵守。」

众人用石头打死司提反

54众人听见这话就极其恼怒，向司提反咬牙切齿。

55但司提反被圣灵充满，定睛望天，看见 神的荣耀，又看见耶稣站在 神的右边，

56就说：「我看见天开了，人子站在 神的右边。」

57众人大声喊叫，捂着耳朵，齐心拥上前去，

58把他推到城外，用石头打他。作见证的人把衣裳放在一个少年人名叫扫罗的脚前。

59他们正用石头打的时候，司提反呼吁主说：「求主耶稣接收我的灵魂！」

60又跪下大声喊着说：「主啊，不要将这罪归于他们！」说了这话，就睡了。扫罗也喜悦他被害。

1The high priest said, “Are these things so?”

2He said, “Brothers and fathers, listen. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,

3and said to him, ‘Get out of your land and away from your relatives, and come into a land which I will show you.’

4Then he came out of the land of the Chaldaeans and lived in Haran. From there, when his father was dead, God moved him into this land where you are now living.

5He gave him no inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on. He promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his offspring after him, when he still had no child.

6God spoke in this way: that his offspring would live as aliens in a strange land, and that they would be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years.

7‘I will judge the nation to which they will be in bondage,’ said God, ‘and after that they will come out and serve me in this place.’

8He gave him the covenant of circumcision. So Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day. Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.

9“The patriarchs, moved with jealousy against Joseph, sold him into Egypt. God was with him

10and delivered him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favour and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt. He made him governor over Egypt and all his house.

11Now a famine came over all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction. Our fathers found no food.

12But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers the first time.

13On the second time Joseph was made known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family was revealed to Pharaoh.

14Joseph sent and summoned Jacob his father and all his relatives, seventy-five souls.

15Jacob went down into Egypt and he died, himself and our fathers;

16and they were brought back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham bought for a price in silver from the children of Hamor of Shechem.

17“But as the time of the promise came close which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt,

18until there arose a different king who didn’t know Joseph.

19The same took advantage of our race and mistreated our fathers, and forced them to abandon their babies, so that they wouldn’t stay alive.

20At that time Moses was born, and was exceedingly handsome to God. He was nourished three months in his father’s house.

21When he was abandoned, Pharaoh’s daughter took him up and reared him as her own son.

22Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. He was mighty in his words and works.

23But when he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers,the children of Israel.

24Seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him and avenged him who was oppressed, striking the Egyptian.

25He supposed that his brothers understood that God, by his hand, was giving them deliverance; but they didn’t understand.

26“The day following, he appeared to them as they fought, and urged them to be at peace again, saying, ‘Sirs, you are brothers. Why do you wrong one another?’

27But he who did his neighbour wrong pushed him away, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?

28Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’

29Moses fled at this saying, and became a stranger in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.

30“When forty years were fulfilled, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush.

31When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight. As he came close to see, the voice of the Lord came to him,

32‘I am the God of your fathers: the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ Moses trembled and dared not look.

33The Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you stand is holy ground.

34I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their groaning. I have come down to deliver them. Now come, I will send you into Egypt.’

35“This Moses whom they refused, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’—God has sent him as both a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.

36This man led them out, having worked wonders and signs in Egypt, in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years.

37This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, ‘The Lord our God will raise up a prophet for you from amongst your brothers, like me.’

38This is he who was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel that spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, who received living revelations to give to us,

39to whom our fathers wouldn’t be obedient, but rejected him and turned back in their hearts to Egypt,

40saying to Aaron, ‘Make us gods that will go before us, for as for this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what has become of him.’

41They made a calf in those days, and brought a sacrifice to the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their hands.

42But God turned away and gave them up to serve the army of the sky,as it is written in the book of the prophets,‘Did you offer to me slain animals and sacrificesforty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?

43You took up the tabernacle of Moloch,the star of your god Rephan,the figures which you made to worship,so I will carry you away beyond Babylon.’

44“Our fathers had the tabernacle of the testimony in the wilderness, even as he who spoke to Moses commanded him to make it according to the pattern that he had seen;

45which also our fathers, in their turn, brought in with Joshua when they entered into the possession of the nations whom God drove out before the face of our fathers to the days of David,

46who found favour in the sight of God, and asked to find a habitation for the God of Jacob.

47But Solomon built him a house.

48However, the Most High doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says,

49‘heaven is my throne,and the earth a footstool for my feet.What kind of house will you build me?’ says the Lord.‘Or what is the place of my rest?

50Didn’t my hand make all these things?’

51“You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit! As your fathers did, so you do.

52Which of the prophets didn’t your fathers persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, of whom you have now become betrayers and murderers.

53You received the law as it was ordained by angels, and didn’t keep it!”

54Now when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth.

55But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,

56and said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”

57But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears, then rushed at him with one accord.

58They threw him out of the city and stoned him. The witnesses placed their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.

59They stoned Stephen as he called out, saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!”

60He knelt down and cried with a loud voice, “Lord, don’t hold this sin against them!” When he had said this, he fell asleep.