37. It was this Moses who said to the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you, from among your own kinsfolk, a prophet like me.’
38. It was he who, in the assembly in the desert, was with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our ancestors, and he received living utterances to hand on to us.
39. “Our ancestors were unwilling to obey him; instead, they pushed him aside and in their hearts turned back to Egypt,
40. saying to Aaron, ‘Make us gods who will be our leaders. As for that Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.’
41. So they made a calf in those days, offered sacrifice to the idol, and reveled in the works of their hands.
42. Then God turned and handed them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets:‘Did you bring me sacrifices and offeringsfor forty years in the desert, O house of Israel?
43. No, you took up the tent of Molochand the star of (your) god Rephan,the images that you made to worship.So I shall take you into exile beyond Babylon.’
44. “Our ancestors had the tent of testimony in the desert just as the One who spoke to Moses directed him to make it according to the pattern he had seen.
45. Our ancestors who inherited it brought it with Joshua when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out from before our ancestors, up to the time of David,
46. who found favor in the sight of God and asked that he might find a dwelling place for the house of Jacob.
47. But Solomon built a house for him.
48. Yet the Most High does not dwell in houses made by human hands. As the prophet says:
49. ‘The heavens are my throne,the earth is my footstool.What kind of house can you build for me?says the Lord,or what is to be my resting place?
50. Did not my hand make all these things?’
51. “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always oppose the holy Spirit; you are just like your ancestors.
52. Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They put to death those who foretold the coming of the righteous one, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become.
53. You received the law as transmitted by angels, but you did not observe it.”
54. When they heard this, they were infuriated, and they ground their teeth at him.