Study Desk

"Our ancestors had the tabernacle of the testimony in the wilderness, just as He who spoke to Moses commanded him to make it according to the pattern he had seen.^(ai)

Our ancestors in turn received it and with Joshua brought it in when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our fathers,^(aj) until the days of David.

He found favor in God's sight and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God^[s] of Jacob.^(ak)

But it was Solomon who built Him a house.^(al)

However, the Most High does not dwell in sanctuaries made with hands, as the prophet says:^(am)

Heaven is My throne, and earth My footstool. What sort of house will you build for Me? says the Lord, or what is My resting place?

Did not My hand make all these things? ^(an)[t]

"You stiff-necked^(ao) people with uncircumcised hearts and ears!^(ap) You are always resisting the Holy Spirit; as your ancestors did, so do you.

Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute?^(aq) They even killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers^(ar) you have now become.

You received the law under the direction of angels^(as) and yet have not kept it."

When they heard these things, they were enraged in their hearts^[u] and gnashed their teeth at him.

But Stephen, filled by the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven. He saw God's glory, with^[v] Jesus standing at the right hand of God,^(at) and he said,

"Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!"^(au)

Then they screamed at the top of their voices, covered their ears, and together rushed against him.

They threw him out of the city and began to stone^(av) him. And the witnesses laid their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul.^(aw)

They were stoning Stephen as he called out: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!"^(ax)

Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice,^(ay) "Lord, do not charge them with this sin!" And saying this, he fell asleep.^(az)