First Reading: Acts 7:51--8:1

⁵¹ ”You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.
⁵² Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered,
⁵³ you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.”
⁵⁴ Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth against him.
⁵⁵ But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God;
⁵⁶ and he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.”
⁵⁷ But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together upon him.
⁵⁸ Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him; and the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.
⁵⁹ And as they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
⁶⁰ And he knelt down and cried with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
¹ And Saul was consenting to his death. And on that day a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the region of Judea and Sama’ria, except the apostles.