Acts 7:22-43

Common English Bible

²² Moses learned everything Egyptian wisdom had to offer, and he was a man of powerful words and deeds.

²³ “When Moses was 40 years old, he decided to visit his family, the Israelites. ²⁴ He saw one of them being wronged so he came to his rescue and evened the score by killing the Egyptian. ²⁵ He expected his own kin to understand that God was using him to rescue them, but they didn’t. ²⁶ The next day he came upon some Israelites who were caught up in an argument. He tried to make peace between them by saying, ‘You are brothers! Why are you harming each other?’ ²⁷ The one who started the fight against his neighbor pushed Moses aside and said, ‘Who appointed you as our leader and judge? ²⁸ Are you planning to kill me like you killed that Egyptian yesterday?’^{[a] 29} When Moses heard this, he fled to Midian, where he lived as an immigrant and had two sons.

³⁰ “Forty years later, an angel appeared to Moses in the flame of a burning bush in the wilderness near Mount Sinai. ³¹ Enthralled by the sight, Moses approached to get a closer look and he heard the Lord’s voice: ³² ‘I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’^[b] Trembling with fear, Moses didn’t dare to investigate any further. ³³ The Lord continued, ‘Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. ³⁴ I have clearly seen the oppression my people have experienced in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning. I have come down to rescue them. Come! I am sending you to Egypt.’^[c]

³⁵ “This is the same Moses whom they rejected when they asked, ‘Who appointed you as our leader and judge?’ This is the Moses whom God sent as leader and deliverer. God did this with the help of the angel who appeared before him in the bush. ³⁶ This man led them out after he performed wonders and signs in Egypt at the Red Sea and for forty years in the wilderness. ³⁷ This is the Moses who told the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your own people.’^{[d] 38} This is the one who was in the assembly in the wilderness with our ancestors and with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai. He is the one who received life-giving words to give to us. ³⁹ He’s also the one whom our ancestors refused to obey. Instead, they pushed him aside and, in their thoughts and desires, returned to Egypt. ⁴⁰ They told Aaron, ‘Make us gods that will lead us. As for this Moses who led us out of Egypt, we don’t know what’s happened to him!’^{[e] 41} That’s when they made an idol in the shape of a calf, offered a sacrifice to it, and began to celebrate what they had made with their own hands. ⁴² So God turned away from them and handed them over to worship the stars in the sky, just as it is written in the scroll of the Prophets: