Acts of the Apostles

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[...]   “We found the prison shut and locked, and the guards standing before the doors, but when we opened them, we found no one inside!”   [...]

Acts of the Apostles: chapter 5, verse 23

Chapter 6, verse 1 - Chapter 7, verse 38

1 Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, a complaint arose from the Hellenists against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily service.
2 The twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, “It is not appropriate for us to forsake the word of God and serve tables.
3 Therefore select from among you, brothers, seven men of good report, full of the Holy Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business.
4 But we will continue steadfastly in prayer and in the ministry of the word.”
5 These words pleased the whole multitude. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch
6 whom they set before the apostles. When they had prayed, they laid their hands on them.
7 The word of God increased and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem exceedingly. A great company of the priests were obedient to the faith.
8 Stephen, full of faith and power, performed great wonders and signs among the people.
9 But some of those who were of the synagogue called “The Libertines,” and of the Cyrenians, of the Alexandrians, and of those of Cilicia and Asia arose, disputing with Stephen.
10 They weren’t able to withstand the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke.
11 Then they secretly induced men to say, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.”
12 They stirred up the people, the elders, and the scribes, and came against him and seized him, and brought him in to the council,
13 and set up false witnesses who said, “This man never stops speaking blasphemous words against this holy place and the law.
14 For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place, and will change the customs which Moses delivered to us.”
15 All who sat in the council, fastening their eyes on him, saw his face like it was the face of an angel.
Chapter 7
1 The high priest said, “Are these things so?”
2 He said, “Brothers and fathers, listen. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,
3 and said to him, ‘Get out of your land, and from your relatives, and come into a land which I will show you.’
4 Then he came out of the land of the Chaldaeans, and lived in Haran. From there, when his father was dead, God moved him into this land, where you are now living.
5 He gave him no inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on. He promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him, when he still had no child.
6 God spoke in this way: that his seed would live as aliens in a strange land, and that they would be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years.
7 ‘I will judge the nation to which they will be in bondage,’ said God, ‘and after that will they come out, and serve me in this place.’
8 He gave him the covenant of circumcision. So Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day. Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.
9 “The patriarchs, moved with jealousy against Joseph, sold him into Egypt. God was with him,
10 and delivered him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt. He made him governor over Egypt and all his house.
11 Now a famine came over all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction. Our fathers found no food.
12 But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers the first time.
13 On the second time Joseph was made known to his brothers, and Joseph’s race was revealed to Pharaoh.
14 Joseph sent, and summoned Jacob, his father, and all his relatives, seventy-five souls.
15 Jacob went down into Egypt, and he died, himself and our fathers,
16 and they were brought back to Shechem, and laid in the tomb that Abraham bought for a price in silver from the children of Hamor of Shechem.
17 “But as the time of the promise came close which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt,
18 until there arose a different king, who didn’t know Joseph.
19 The same took advantage of our race, and mistreated our fathers, and forced them to throw out their babies, so that they wouldn’t stay alive.
20 At that time Moses was born, and was exceedingly handsome. He was nourished three months in his father’s house.
21 When he was thrown out, Pharaoh’s daughter took him up, and reared him as her own son.
22 Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. He was mighty in his words and works.
23 But when he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel.
24 Seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him who was oppressed, striking the Egyptian.
25 He supposed that his brothers understood that God, by his hand, was giving them deliverance
26 “The day following, he appeared to them as they fought, and urged them to be at peace again, saying, ‘Sirs, you are brothers. Why do you wrong one another?’
27 But he who did his neighbor wrong pushed him away, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?
28 Do you want to kill me, as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’
29 Moses fled at this saying, and became a stranger in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.
30 “When forty years were fulfilled, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush.
31 When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight. As he came close to see, a voice of the Lord came to him,
32 ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ Moses trembled, and dared not look.
33 The Lord said to him, ‘Take your sandals off of your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.
34 I have surely seen the affliction of my people that is in Egypt, and have heard their groaning. I have come down to deliver them. Now come, I will send you into Egypt.’
35 “This Moses, whom they refused, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’—God has sent him as both a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.
36 This man led them out, having worked wonders and signs in Egypt, in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years.
37 This is that Moses, who said to the children of Israel, ‘The Lord our God will raise up a prophet for you from among your brothers, like me.’
38 This is he who was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel that spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, who received living oracles to give to us,