Acts 7:17-45

17“But as the time drew near for the promise God had sworn to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt—

18until ‘there arose another king over Egypt who knew nothing about Joseph.’

19Dealing with our people with cruel cunning, this king mistreated our fathers and forced them to abandon their infants so they would not survive.

20“At this time Moses was born—extraordinary before God. For three months he was nurtured in his father’s house.

21And when he was set outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him and raised him as her own son.

22Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was powerful in his words and deeds.

23“When he was approaching forty years of age, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, Bnei-Yisrael.

24When he saw one of them being treated unjustly, he went to the defense of the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian.

25He was assuming that his brothers understood that by his hand God was delivering them, but they did not understand.

26So on the next day he appeared to them as they were fighting. He tried to reconcile them in shalom, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why do you wrong one another?’

27“But the one doing wrong to his neighbor pushed him away, saying, ‘Who appointed you ruler and judge over us?

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

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

30“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. But when he came up to look, there came the voice of Adonai:

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

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

34I have surely seen the oppression of my people in Egypt and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them. Now come—let Me send you to Egypt.’

35“This Moses—whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who appointed you as ruler and judge?’—is the one whom 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 the land of Egypt, and at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years.

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

38“This is the one who was in the community in the wilderness, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. He received living words to pass on to us.

39Our fathers did not want to be obedient to him, but shoved him aside. And in their hearts they turned back to Egypt,

40saying to Aaron, ‘Make gods for us who will go before us. For this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt—we have no idea what has happened to him.’

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

42But God turned and gave them over to serve the host of heaven, just as it is written in the book of the Prophets: ‘It was not to Me that you brought sacrifices and offerings for forty years in the wilderness, was it, O House of Israel?

43You also took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan, the images you made to worship. And I will deport you beyond Babylon.’

44“Our fathers had the Tent of Witness in the wilderness—just as the One speaking to Moses had directed him to make it according to the design he had seen.

45Our fathers received it in turn and brought it in with Joshua when they took possession of the land of the nations that God drove out before our fathers. So it remained until the days of David,