Acts 7:41

So, they made out of gold an image that looked like a calf. Then they sacrificed animals and offered other things to honor that idol, and they sang and danced to honor the idol that they themselves had made.

Translation for Translators

In The King James Version

And they made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands.

In Context

40So they told his older brother Aaron, ‘Make idols for us who will be our gods to lead us back to Egypt! As for that fellow Moses who led us out of Egypt we (exc) do not know what has happened to him!’

42So God rejected them. He abandoned them to worship the sun, moon and stars in the sky. This agrees with the words that one of the prophets wrote that God said, You Israelite people [MTY], when you repeatedly killed animals and offered them as sacrifices during those 40 years that you were in the desert, ◄you most certainly were not offering them to me!/what makes you think that you were offering them to me?► [RHQ]

Read all of Acts 7

Cross References

Exodus 32:2Aaron replied to them, “All right, I will do that, but tell your wives and your sons and your daughters to take off all their gold earrings and bring them to me.”

Deuteronomy 9:12But then he said to me, ‘Go down the mountain immediately, because the people whom you are leading, the people whom you led out of Egypt, have committed a terrible sin! They have very quickly done what I commanded them not to do. They have made for themselves a metal statue of a calf to worship.’

Psalms 106:19Then the Israeli leaders made a gold statue at Sinai Mountain and worshiped it.

Isaiah 44:9All those who make idols are foolish, and the idols that they ◄think highly of/greatly respect► are worthless. And the people who worship those idols— it is as though they are blind, and they will be ashamed for having worshiped those idols.

Hosea 9:10Yahweh says, “When I first started to do things to help Israel, it seemed to me as though [SIM] I had found grapes in the desert. Your ancestors were delightful, like [SIM] the first figs that grow on fig trees each year. But when they came to Peor Mountain, they worshiped that disgusting idol Baal, and they became as disgusting as the idol that they loved.

Revelation 9:20The rest of the rebellious people, those who were not killed by these plagues of fire and smoke and burning sulfur, did not turn from their sinful behavior. They did not stop worshipping the idols that they had made with their own hands. They did not stop worshipping demons and idols that were made of gold, of silver, of bronze, of stone, and of wood, even though they are idols that can neither see nor hear nor walk.

Matthew Henry on Acts 7:31-42

Stephen's Address. 30 And when forty years were expired, there appeared to him in the wilderness of mount Sina an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush. 31 When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight: and as he drew near to behold it, the voice of the Lord came unto him, 32 Saying, I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Then Moses trembled, and durst not behold. 33 Then said the Lord to him, Put off thy shoes from thy feet: for the place where thou… Read the whole commentary →

This Verse In Other Editions

Study Acts 7:41