Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹ “Judge not, that you be not judged.

² For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.

³Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

⁴Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye?

⁵You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

⁶ “Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.

⁷ “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

⁸For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.

⁹Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone?

¹⁰Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?

¹¹If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

¹²“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

¹³ “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.

¹⁴For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

¹⁵ “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

¹⁶You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?

¹⁷So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.

¹⁸A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.

¹⁹ Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

²⁰Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.

²¹ “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

²² On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’

²³ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

²⁴ “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

²⁵And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.

²⁶And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.

²⁷And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

²⁸And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching,

²⁹for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.

¹Then the LORD said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation.

²Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate,

³and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth.

⁴For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.”

⁵And Noah did all that the LORD had commanded him.

⁶Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth.

⁷And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood.

⁸Of clean animals, and of animals that are not clean, and of birds, and of everything that creeps on the ground,

⁹two and two, male and female, went into the ark with Noah, as God had commanded Noah.

¹⁰And after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth.

¹¹In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.

¹²And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights.

¹³On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah's wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark,

¹⁴they and every beast, according to its kind, and all the livestock according to their kinds, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, according to its kind, and every bird, according to its kind, every winged creature.

¹⁵They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life.

¹⁶And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. And the LORD shut him in.

¹⁷The flood continued forty days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth.

¹⁸The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters.

¹⁹And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered.

²⁰The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep.

²¹And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all mankind.

²²Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died.

²³He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark.

²⁴And the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days.

¹Or do you not know, brothers — for I am speaking to those who know the law — that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives?

²For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage.

³Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.

⁴Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.

⁵For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.

⁶But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

⁷What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”

⁸But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead.

⁹I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.

¹⁰The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.

¹¹For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.

¹²So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

¹³Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.

¹⁴For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.

¹⁵For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

¹⁶Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.

¹⁷So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

¹⁸For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.

¹⁹For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

²⁰Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

²¹So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.

²²For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,

²³but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

²⁴Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

²⁵Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

¹Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers,

²not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.

³Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction,

⁴who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.

⁵Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things?

⁶And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time.

⁷For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.

⁸And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.

⁹The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders,

¹⁰and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.

¹¹Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false,

¹²in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

¹³But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.

¹⁴To this he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

¹⁵So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.

¹⁶Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace,

¹⁷comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.

¹“Has not man a hard service on earth, and are not his days like the days of a hired hand?

²Like a slave who longs for the shadow, and like a hired hand who looks for his wages,

³so I am allotted months of emptiness, and nights of misery are apportioned to me.

⁴When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I arise?’ But the night is long, and I am full of tossing till the dawn.

⁵My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt; my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh.

⁶My days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle and come to their end without hope.

⁷“Remember that my life is a breath; my eye will never again see good.

⁸The eye of him who sees me will behold me no more; while your eyes are on me, I shall be gone.

⁹As the cloud fades and vanishes, so he who goes down to Sheol does not come up;

¹⁰he returns no more to his house, nor does his place know him anymore.

¹¹“Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

¹²Am I the sea, or a sea monster, that you set a guard over me?

¹³When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint,’

¹⁴then you scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions,

¹⁵so that I would choose strangling and death rather than my bones.

¹⁶I loathe my life; I would not live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are a breath.

¹⁷What is man, that you make so much of him, and that you set your heart on him,

¹⁸visit him every morning and test him every moment?

¹⁹How long will you not look away from me, nor leave me alone till I swallow my spit?

²⁰If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of mankind? Why have you made me your mark? Why have I become a burden to you?

²¹Why do you not pardon my transgression and take away my iniquity? For now I shall lie in the earth; you will seek me, but I shall not be.”

¹O LORD my God, in you do I take refuge; save me from all my pursuers and deliver me,

²lest like a lion they tear my soul apart, rending it in pieces, with none to deliver.

³O LORD my God, if I have done this, if there is wrong in my hands,

⁴if I have repaid my friend with evil or plundered my enemy without cause,

⁵let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it, and let him trample my life to the ground and lay my glory in the dust. Selah

⁶Arise, O LORD, in your anger; lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies; awake for me; you have appointed a judgment.

⁷Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you; over it return on high.

⁸The LORD judges the peoples; judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me.

⁹Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end, and may you establish the righteous — you who test the minds and hearts, O righteous God!

¹⁰My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart.

¹¹God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day.

¹²If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword; he has bent and readied his bow;

¹³he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts.

¹⁴Behold, the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies.

¹⁵He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole that he has made.

¹⁶His mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own skull his violence descends.

¹⁷I will give to the LORD the thanks due to his righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the LORD, the Most High.

¹My son, keep my words and treasure up my commandments with you;

²keep my commandments and live; keep my teaching as the apple of your eye;

³bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.

⁴Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,” and call insight your intimate friend,

⁵to keep you from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words.

⁶For at the window of my house I have looked out through my lattice,

⁷and I have seen among the simple, I have perceived among the youths, a young man lacking sense,

⁸passing along the street near her corner, taking the road to her house

⁹in the twilight, in the evening, at the time of night and darkness.

¹⁰And behold, the woman meets him, dressed as a prostitute, wily of heart.

¹¹She is loud and wayward; her feet do not stay at home;

¹²now in the street, now in the market, and at every corner she lies in wait.

¹³She seizes him and kisses him, and with bold face she says to him,

¹⁴“I had to offer sacrifices, and today I have paid my vows;

¹⁵so now I have come out to meet you, to seek you eagerly, and I have found you.

¹⁶I have spread my couch with coverings, colored linens from Egyptian linen;

¹⁷I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.

¹⁸Come, let us take our fill of love till morning; let us delight ourselves with love.

¹⁹For my husband is not at home; he has gone on a long journey;

²⁰he took a bag of money with him; at full moon he will come home.”

²¹With much seductive speech she persuades him; with her smooth talk she compels him.

²²All at once he follows her, as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a stag is caught fast

²³till an arrow pierces its liver; as a bird rushes into a snare; he does not know that it will cost him his life.

²⁴And now, O sons, listen to me, and be attentive to the words of my mouth.

²⁵Let not your heart turn aside to her ways; do not stray into her paths,

²⁶for many a victim has she laid low, and all her slain are a mighty throng.

²⁷Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death.

¹But the people of Israel broke faith in regard to the devoted things, for Achan the son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of the devoted things. And the anger of the LORD burned against the people of Israel.

²Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth-aven, east of Bethel, and said to them, “Go up and spy out the land.” And the men went up and spied out Ai.

³And they returned to Joshua and said to him, “Do not have all the people go up, but let about two or three thousand men go up and attack Ai. Do not make the whole people toil up there, for they are few.”

⁴So about three thousand men went up there from the people. And they fled before the men of Ai,

⁵and the men of Ai killed about thirty-six of their men and chased them before the gate as far as Shebarim and struck them at the descent. And the hearts of the people melted and became as water.

⁶Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell to the earth on his face before the ark of the LORD until the evening, he and the elders of Israel. And they put dust on their heads.

⁷And Joshua said, “Alas, O Lord GOD, why have you brought this people over the Jordan at all, to give us into the hands of the Amorites, to destroy us? Would that we had been content to dwell beyond the Jordan!

⁸O Lord, what can I say, when Israel has turned their backs before their enemies!

⁹For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it and will surround us and cut off our name from the earth. And what will you do for your great name?”

¹⁰The LORD said to Joshua, “Get up! Why have you fallen on your face?

¹¹Israel has sinned; they have transgressed my covenant that I commanded them; they have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen and lied and put them among their own belongings.

¹²Therefore the people of Israel cannot stand before their enemies. They turn their backs before their enemies, because they have become devoted for destruction. I will be with you no more, unless you destroy the devoted things from among you.

¹³Get up! Consecrate the people and say, ‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow; for thus says the LORD, God of Israel, “There are devoted things in your midst, O Israel. You cannot stand before your enemies until you take away the devoted things from among you.”

¹⁴In the morning therefore you shall be brought near by your tribes. And the tribe that the LORD takes by lot shall come near by clans. And the clan that the LORD takes shall come near by households. And the household that the LORD takes shall come near man by man.

¹⁵And he who is taken with the devoted things shall be burned with fire, he and all that he has, because he has transgressed the covenant of the LORD, and because he has done an outrageous thing in Israel.’”

¹⁶So Joshua rose early in the morning and brought Israel near tribe by tribe, and the tribe of Judah was taken.

¹⁷And he brought near the clans of Judah, and the clan of the Zerahites was taken. And he brought near the clan of the Zerahites man by man, and Zabdi was taken.

¹⁸And he brought near his household man by man, and Achan the son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, was taken.

¹⁹Then Joshua said to Achan, “My son, give glory to the LORD God of Israel and give praise to him. And tell me now what you have done; do not hide it from me.”

²⁰And Achan answered Joshua, “Truly I have sinned against the LORD God of Israel, and this is what I did:

²¹when I saw among the spoil a beautiful cloak from Shinar, and 200 shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels, then I coveted them and took them. And see, they are hidden in the earth inside my tent, with the silver underneath.”

²²So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran to the tent; and behold, it was hidden in his tent with the silver underneath.

²³And they took them out of the tent and brought them to Joshua and to all the people of Israel. And they laid them down before the LORD.

²⁴And Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver and the cloak and the bar of gold, and his sons and daughters and his oxen and donkeys and sheep and his tent and all that he had. And they brought them up to the Valley of Achor.

²⁵And Joshua said, “Why did you bring trouble on us? The LORD brings trouble on you today.” And all Israel stoned him with stones. They burned them with fire and stoned them with stones.

²⁶And they raised over him a great heap of stones that remains to this day. Then the LORD turned from his burning anger. Therefore, to this day the name of that place is called the Valley of Achor.

¹In the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, king of Judah, Rezin the king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah the king of Israel came up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but could not yet mount an attack against it.

²When the house of David was told, “Syria is in league with Ephraim,” the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.

³And the LORD said to Isaiah, “Go out to meet Ahaz, you and Shear-jashub your son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Washer's Field.

⁴And say to him, ‘Be careful, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands, at the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria and the son of Remaliah.

⁵Because Syria, with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has devised evil against you, saying,

⁶“Let us go up against Judah and terrify it, and let us conquer it for ourselves, and set up the son of Tabeel as king in the midst of it,”

⁷thus says the Lord GOD: “‘It shall not stand, and it shall not come to pass.

⁸For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin. And within sixty-five years Ephraim will be shattered from being a people.

⁹And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah. If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all.’”

¹⁰Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz:

¹¹“Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.”

¹²But Ahaz said, “I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test.”

¹³And he said, “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also?

¹⁴Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

¹⁵He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good.

¹⁶For before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted.

¹⁷The LORD will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father's house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah — the king of Assyria!”

¹⁸In that day the LORD will whistle for the fly that is at the end of the streams of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria.

¹⁹And they will all come and settle in the steep ravines, and in the clefts of the rocks, and on all the thornbushes, and on all the pastures.

²⁰In that day the Lord will shave with a razor that is hired beyond the River — with the king of Assyria — the head and the hair of the feet, and it will sweep away the beard also.

²¹In that day a man will keep alive a young cow and two sheep,

²²and because of the abundance of milk that they give, he will eat curds, for everyone who is left in the land will eat curds and honey.

²³In that day every place where there used to be a thousand vines, worth a thousand shekels of silver, will become briers and thorns.

²⁴With bow and arrows a man will come there, for all the land will be briers and thorns.

²⁵And as for all the hills that used to be hoed with a hoe, you will not come there for fear of briers and thorns, but they will become a place where cattle are let loose and where sheep tread.

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

²And Stephen said: “Brothers and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,

³and said to him, ‘Go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you.’

⁴Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living.

⁵Yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot's length, but promised to give it to him as a possession and to his offspring after him, though he had no child.

⁶And God spoke to this effect — that his offspring would be sojourners in a land belonging to others, who would enslave them and afflict them four hundred years.

⁷‘But I will judge the nation that they serve,’ said God, ‘and after that they shall come out and worship me in this place.’

⁸And he gave him the covenant of circumcision. And so 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.

⁹“And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt; but God was with him

¹⁰and rescued him out of all his afflictions and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt and over all his household.

¹¹Now there came a famine throughout all Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction, and our fathers could find no food.

¹²But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers on their first visit.

¹³And on the second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph's family became known to Pharaoh.

¹⁴And Joseph sent and summoned Jacob his father and all his kindred, seventy-five persons in all.

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

¹⁶and they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.

¹⁷“But as the time of the promise drew near, which God had granted to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt

¹⁸until there arose over Egypt another king who did not know Joseph.

¹⁹He dealt shrewdly with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants, so that they would not be kept alive.

²⁰At this time Moses was born; and he was beautiful in God's sight. And he was brought up for three months in his father's house,

²¹and when he was exposed, Pharaoh's daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son.

²²And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds.

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

²⁴And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian.

²⁵He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand.

²⁶And on the following day he appeared to them as they were quarreling and tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why do you wrong each other?’

²⁷But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?

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

²⁹At this retort Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.

³⁰“Now when forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush.

³¹When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight, and as he drew near to look, there came the voice of the Lord:

³²‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob.’ And Moses trembled and did not dare to look.

³³Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.

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

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

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

³⁷This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.’

³⁸This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. He received living oracles to give to us.

³⁹Our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside, and in their hearts they turned to Egypt,

⁴⁰saying to Aaron, ‘Make for us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’

⁴¹And they made a calf in those days, and offered a sacrifice to the idol and were rejoicing in the works of their hands.

⁴²But God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: “‘Did you bring to me slain beasts and sacrifices, during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?

⁴³You took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan, the images that you made to worship; and I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.’

⁴⁴“Our fathers had the tent of witness in the wilderness, just as he who spoke to Moses directed him to make it, according to the pattern that he had seen.

⁴⁵Our fathers in turn brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our fathers. So it was until the days of David,

⁴⁶who found favor in the sight of God and asked to find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.

⁴⁷But it was Solomon who built a house for him.

⁴⁸Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by hands, as the prophet says,

⁴⁹“‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord, or what is the place of my rest?

⁵⁰Did not my hand make all these things?’

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

⁵²Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered,

⁵³you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.”

⁵⁴Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him.

⁵⁵But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

⁵⁶And he 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 and rushed together at him.

⁵⁸Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.

⁵⁹And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”

⁶⁰And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.