Acts 7:53

⁵¹ You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit, just as your fathers did.

⁵² Which of the prophets did your fathers fail to persecute? They even killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One. And now you are His betrayers and murderers—

you who received the law ordained by angels, yet have not kept it.”

⁵⁴ On hearing this, the members of the Sanhedrin were enraged, and they gnashed their teeth at him.

⁵⁵ But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked intently into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

Here the Bible tells a story about someone else. Ask yourself what it can say to us today. Do read the surrounding verses too, because the context often says more than a single verse.

Compare

BSB: you who received the law ordained by angels, yet have not kept it.”
KJV: Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.
WEB: You received the law as it was ordained by angels, and didn’t keep it!”
ASV: ye who received the law as it was ordained by angels, and kept it not.
DARBY: who have received the law as ordained by [the] ministry of angels, and have not kept [it].
BLB: [you] who received the law by the ordination of angels, and did not keep [it].”

ÅB: Dere som mottok loven gitt ved engler og ikke har holdt den!
OTB: dere som mottok loven gitt gjennom engler, men ikke har holdt den.»
B1930: I som mottok loven gitt ved engler og ikke har holdt den!

Study notes (Tyndale)

Original text and word study

Cross references

Hebrews 2:2
For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every transgression and disobedience received its just punishment,
Read in context
Galatians 3:19
Why then was the law given? It was added because of transgressions, until the arrival of the seed to whom the promise referred. It was administered through angels by a mediator.
Read in context
Acts 7:38
He was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. And he received living words to pass on to us.
Read in context
John 7:19
Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps it. Why are you trying to kill Me?”
Read in context
Deuteronomy 33:2
He said: “The LORD came from Sinai and dawned upon us from Seir; He shone forth from Mount Paran and came with myriads of holy ones, with flaming fire at His right hand.
Read in context
Galatians 6:13
For the circumcised do not even keep the law themselves, yet they want you to be circumcised that they may boast in your flesh.
Read in context
Romans 2:23–25
You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?
Read in context
Ezekiel 20:18–21
In the wilderness I said to their children: ‘Do not walk in the statutes of your fathers or keep their ordinances or defile yourselves with their idols.
Read in context