Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹“Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.

²For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.

³Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?

⁴Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is 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 neighbor’s eye.

⁶“Do not give what is holy to dogs; and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under foot and turn and maul you.

⁷“Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.

⁸For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

⁹Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone?

¹⁰Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake?

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

¹²“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.

¹³“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it.

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

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

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

¹⁷In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.

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

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

²⁰Thus you will know them by their fruits.

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

²²On 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 deeds of power in your name?’

²³Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’

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

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

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

²⁷The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell — and great was its fall!”

²⁸Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching,

²⁹for he taught them as one having 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 alone are righteous before me in this generation.

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

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

⁴For in seven days I will send rain on the earth for 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 on the earth.

⁷And Noah with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives 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 on 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.

¹²The rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.

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

¹⁴they and every wild animal of every kind, and all domestic animals of every kind, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every bird of every kind — every bird, 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; and the waters increased, and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth.

¹⁸The waters swelled and increased greatly on the earth; and the ark floated on the face of the waters.

¹⁹The waters swelled so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered;

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

²¹And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, domestic animals, wild animals, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all human beings;

²²everything on 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, human beings and animals and creeping things and birds of the air; they were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those that were with him in the ark.

²⁴And the waters swelled on the earth for one hundred fifty days.

¹Do you not know, brothers and sisters — for I am speaking to those who know the law — that the law is binding on a person only during that person’s lifetime?

²Thus a married woman is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives; but if her husband dies, she is discharged from the law concerning the husband.

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.

⁴In the same way, my friends, you 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.

⁵While 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 discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are slaves not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.

⁷What then should 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. 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 in the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law sin lies dead.

⁹I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived

¹⁰and I died, and the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.

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

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

¹³Did what is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, working 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 into slavery under sin.

¹⁵I 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 that the law is good.

¹⁷But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.

¹⁸For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.

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

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

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

²²For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self,

²³but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

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

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

¹As to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we beg you, brothers and sisters,

²not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as though from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here.

³Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one destined for destruction.

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

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

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

⁷For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, but only until the one who now restrains it is removed.

⁸And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will destroy with the breath of his mouth, annihilating him by the manifestation of his coming.

⁹The coming of the lawless one is apparent in the working of Satan, who uses all power, signs, lying wonders,

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

¹¹For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion, leading them to believe what is false,

¹²so that all who have not believed the truth but took pleasure in unrighteousness will be condemned.

¹³But we must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the first fruits for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and through belief in the truth.

¹⁴For this purpose he called you through our proclamation of the good news, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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

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

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

¹“Do not human beings have a hard service on earth, and are not their days like the days of a laborer?

²Like a slave who longs for the shadow, and like laborers who look for their 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 rise?’ But the night is long, and I am full of tossing until dawn.

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

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 that beholds me will see me no more; while your eyes are upon me, I shall be gone.

⁹As the cloud fades and vanishes, so those who go down to Sheol do not come up;

¹⁰they return no more to their houses, nor do their places know them any more.

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 the Dragon, 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 this body.

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

¹⁷What are human beings, that you make so much of them, that you set your mind on them,

¹⁸visit them every morning, test them every moment?

¹⁹Will you not look away from me for a while, let me alone until I swallow my spittle?

²⁰If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of humanity? Why have you made me your target? 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 I take refuge; save me from all my pursuers, and deliver me,

²or like a lion they will tear me apart; they will drag me away, with no one to rescue.

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

⁴if I have repaid my ally with harm or plundered my foe without cause,

⁵then let the enemy pursue and overtake me, trample my life to the ground, and lay my soul in the dust. Selah

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

⁷Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered around you, and over it take your seat on high.

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

⁹O let the evil of the wicked come to an end, but establish the righteous, you who test the minds and hearts, O righteous God.

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

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

¹²If one does not repent, God will whet his sword; he has bent and strung his bow;

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

¹⁴See how they conceive evil, and are pregnant with mischief, and bring forth lies.

¹⁵They make a pit, digging it out, and fall into the hole that they have made.

¹⁶Their mischief returns upon their own heads, and on their own heads their violence descends.

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

¹My child, keep my words and store up my commandments with you;

²keep my commandments and live, keep my teachings 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,

⁵that they may keep you from the loose woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words.

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

⁷and I saw among the simple ones, I observed among the youths, a young man without 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.

¹⁰Then a woman comes toward him, decked out like a prostitute, wily of heart.

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

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

¹³She seizes him and kisses him, and with impudent 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 decked my couch with coverings, colored spreads of Egyptian linen;

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

¹⁸Come, let us take our fill of love until 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; he will not come home until full moon.”

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

²²Right away he follows her, and goes like an ox to the slaughter, or bounds like a stag toward the trap

²³until an arrow pierces its entrails. He is like a bird rushing into a snare, not knowing that it will cost him his life.

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

²⁵Do not let your hearts turn aside to her ways; do not stray into her paths.

²⁶For many are those she has laid low, and numerous are her victims.

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

¹But the Israelites broke faith in regard to the devoted things: Achan 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 Israelites.

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.

³Then they returned to Joshua and said to him, “Not all the people need go up; about two or three thousand men should go up and attack Ai. Since they are so few, do not make the whole people toil up there.”

⁴So about three thousand of the people went up there; and they fled before the men of Ai.

⁵The men of Ai killed about thirty-six of them, chasing them from outside the gate as far as Shebarim and killing them on the slope. The hearts of the people melted and turned to water.

⁶Then Joshua tore his clothes, and fell to the ground 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.

⁷Joshua said, “Ah, Lord GOD! Why have you brought this people across the Jordan at all, to hand us over to the Amorites so as to destroy us? Would that we had been content to settle beyond the Jordan!

⁸O Lord, what can I say, now that Israel has turned their backs to their enemies!

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

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

¹¹Israel has sinned; they have transgressed my covenant that I imposed on them. They have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen, they have acted deceitfully, and they have put them among their own belongings.

¹²Therefore the Israelites are unable to stand before their enemies; they turn their backs to their enemies, because they have become a thing devoted for destruction themselves. I will be with you no more, unless you destroy the devoted things from among you.

¹³Proceed to sanctify the people, and say, ‘Sanctify yourselves for tomorrow; for thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, “There are devoted things among you, O Israel; you will be unable to stand before your enemies until you take away the devoted things from among you.”

¹⁴In the morning therefore you shall come forward tribe by tribe. The tribe that the LORD takes shall come near by clans, the clan that the LORD takes shall come near by households, and the household that the LORD takes shall come near one by one.

¹⁵And the one who is taken as having the devoted things shall be burned with fire, together with all that he has, for having transgressed the covenant of the LORD, and for having 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.

¹⁷He brought near the clans of Judah, and the clan of the Zerahites was taken; and he brought near the clan of the Zerahites, family by family, and Zabdi was taken.

¹⁸And he brought near his household one by one, and Achan 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 make confession to him. Tell me now what you have done; do not hide it from me.”

²⁰And Achan answered Joshua, “It is true; I am the one who sinned against the LORD God of Israel. This is what I did:

²¹when I saw among the spoil a beautiful mantle from Shinar, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing fifty shekels, then I coveted them and took them. They now lie hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath.”

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

²³They took them out of the tent and brought them to Joshua and all the Israelites; and they spread them out before the LORD.

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

²⁵Joshua said, “Why did you bring trouble on us? The LORD is bringing trouble on you today.” And all Israel stoned him to death; they burned them with fire, cast stones on them,

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

¹In the days of Ahaz son of Jotham son of Uzziah, king of Judah, King Rezin of Aram and King Pekah son of Remaliah of Israel went up to attack Jerusalem, but could not mount an attack against it.

²When the house of David heard that Aram had allied itself with Ephraim, the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.

³Then the LORD said to Isaiah, Go out to meet Ahaz, you and your son Shear-jashub, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Fuller’s Field,

⁴and say to him, Take heed, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands, because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and the son of Remaliah.

⁵Because Aram — with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah — has plotted evil against you, saying,

⁶Let us go up against Judah and cut off Jerusalem and conquer it for ourselves and make the son of Tabeel king in it;

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

⁸For the head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin. (Within sixty-five years Ephraim will be shattered, no longer a people.)

⁹The head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah. If you do not stand firm in faith, you shall not stand at all.

¹⁰Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz, saying,

¹¹Ask 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.

¹³Then Isaiah said: “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also?

¹⁴Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.

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

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

¹⁷The LORD will bring on you and on your people and on your ancestral house such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah — the king of Assyria.”

¹⁸On that day the LORD will whistle for the fly that is at the sources 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.

²⁰On that day the Lord will shave with a razor hired beyond the River — with the king of Assyria — the head and the hair of the feet, and it will take off the beard as well.

²¹On that day one will keep alive a young cow and two sheep,

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

²³On 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 one will go 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 go there for fear of briers and thorns; but they will become a place where cattle are let loose and where sheep tread.

¹Then the high priest asked him, “Are these things so?”

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

³and said to him, ‘Leave your country and your relatives and go to the land that I will show you.’

⁴Then he left the country of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After his father died, God had him move from there to this country in which you are now living.

⁵He did not give him any of it as a heritage, not even a foot’s length, but promised to give it to him as his possession and to his descendants after him, even though he had no child.

⁶And God spoke in these terms, that his descendants would be resident aliens in a country belonging to others, who would enslave them and mistreat them during 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.’

⁸Then 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“The patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt; but God was with him,

¹⁰and rescued him from all his afflictions, and enabled him to win favor and to show wisdom when he stood before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who appointed him ruler over Egypt and over all his household.

¹¹Now there came a famine throughout Egypt and Canaan, and great suffering, and our ancestors could find no food.

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

¹³On the second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to Pharaoh.

¹⁴Then Joseph sent and invited his father Jacob and all his relatives to come to him, seventy-five in all;

¹⁵so Jacob went down to Egypt. He himself died there as well as our ancestors,

¹⁶and their bodies were brought 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 drew near for the fulfillment of the promise that God had made to Abraham, our people in Egypt increased and multiplied

¹⁸until another king who had not known Joseph ruled over Egypt.

¹⁹He dealt craftily with our race and forced our ancestors to abandon their infants so that they would die.

²⁰At this time Moses was born, and he was beautiful before God. For three months he was brought up in his father’s house;

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

²²So Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in his words and deeds.

²³“When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his relatives, the Israelites.

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

²⁵He supposed that his kinsfolk would understand that God through him was rescuing them, but they did not understand.

²⁶The next day he came to some of 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 pushed Moses aside, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?

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

²⁹When he heard this, Moses fled and became a resident alien in the land of Midian. There 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 the flame of a burning bush.

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

³²‘I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ Moses began to tremble 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 mistreatment of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to rescue them. Come now, I will send you to Egypt.’

³⁵“It was this Moses whom they rejected when they said, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’ and whom God now sent as both ruler and liberator through the angel who appeared to him in the bush.

³⁶He led them out, having performed wonders and signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years.

³⁷This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, ‘God will raise up a prophet for you from your own people as he raised me up.’

³⁸He is the one 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 us.

³⁹Our ancestors were unwilling to obey him; instead, they pushed him aside, and in their hearts they turned back to Egypt,

⁴⁰saying to Aaron, ‘Make gods for us who will lead the way for us; as for this Moses who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.’

⁴¹At that time they made a calf, offered a sacrifice to the idol, and reveled in the works of their hands.

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

⁴³No; you took along the tent of Moloch, and the star of your god Rephan, the images that you made to worship; so I will remove you beyond Babylon.’

⁴⁴“Our ancestors had the tent of testimony in the wilderness, as God directed when he spoke to Moses, ordering him to make it according to the pattern he had seen.

⁴⁵Our ancestors in turn brought it in with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our ancestors. And it was there until the time of David,

⁴⁶who found favor with God and asked that he might find a dwelling place for the house of Jacob.

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

⁴⁸Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made with human 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 are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do.

⁵²Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers.

⁵³You are the ones that received the law as ordained by angels, and yet you have not kept it.”

⁵⁴When they heard these things, they became enraged and ground their teeth at Stephen.

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

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

⁵⁷But they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him.

⁵⁸Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.

⁵⁹While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”

⁶⁰Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he died.