Acts 7:44-60
"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. Our 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, who found favor with God and
asked that he might find a dwelling place for the house of Jacob. But it
was Solomon who built a house for him. Yet the Most High does not dwell
in houses made with human hands as the prophet says,
'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?
Did not my hand make all these things?'
"You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are forever
opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. Which 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. You are the ones that received the law as ordained by angels,
and yet you have not kept it."
When they heard these things, they became enraged and ground their teeth
at Stephen. But filled with the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven and saw
the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. "Look," he
said, "I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right
hand of God!" But they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all
rushed together against him. Then 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. While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, "Lord
Jesus, receive my spirit." Then 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.
