Acts 7:17-45

17“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,

18until another king who did not know about Joseph ruled over Egypt.

19This was the one who exploited our people and was cruel to our ancestors, forcing them to abandon their infants so they would die.

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

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

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

23But when he was about forty years old, it entered his mind to visit his fellow countrymen the Israelites.

24When 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.

25He thought his own people would understand that God was delivering them through him, but they did not understand.

26The 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?’

27But the man who was unfairly hurting his neighbor pushed Moses aside, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us?

28You don’t want to kill me the way you killed the Egyptian yesterday, do you?’

29When the man said this, Moses fled and became a foreigner in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.

30“After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the desert of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning bush.

31When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight, and when he approached to investigate, there came the voice of the Lord,

32‘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.

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

34I 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.’

35This 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.

36This 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.

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

38This 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.

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

40saying 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!’

41At 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.

42But 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?

43But 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.’

44Our 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.

45Our 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.