Acts 7:30-43
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
30 “Now when forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning bush. 31 When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight, and as he approached to look, there came the voice of the Lord: 32 ‘I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ Moses began to tremble and did not dare to look.(A) 33 Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.(B) 34 I have surely seen the mistreatment of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to rescue them. Come now, I will send you to Egypt.’(C)
35 “It was this Moses whom they rejected when they said, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’ and whom God now sent as both ruler and liberator through the angel who appeared to him in the bush.(D) 36 He led them out, having performed wonders and signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years.(E) 37 This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, ‘God will raise up a prophet for you from your own people as he raised me up.’(F) 38 He is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai and with our ancestors, and he received living oracles to give to us.(G) 39 Our ancestors were unwilling to obey him; instead, they pushed him aside, and in their hearts they turned back to Egypt, 40 saying to Aaron, ‘Make gods for us who will lead the way for us; as for this Moses who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.’(H) 41 At that time they made a calf, offered a sacrifice to the idol, and reveled in the works of their hands.(I) 42 But God turned away from them and handed them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets:
‘Did you offer to me slain victims and sacrifices
forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?(J)
43 No; you took along the tent of Moloch
and the star of your god Rephan,
the images that you made to worship;
so I will remove you beyond Babylon.’
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.