But for then, A.V.; to serve for to worship, A.V.; did ye offer unto me slain beasts and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? for O ye house of Israel, have ye offered, etc., by the space of forty years in the wilderness?
A.V. The passage which follows is nearly verbatim et literatim the LXX. of Amos 5:25, Amos 5:27, except the well-known substitution of "Babylon" for "Damascus" in Amos. This, according to Lightfoot, with whom most commentators agree, was in accordance with a very common practice of readers in the schools and pulpits of the Jews, to adapt and accommodate a text to their own immediate purpose, keeping, however, to historical truth.
Here Stephen points to the Babylonish Captivity as the punishment of the sins of their fathers, thus warning them of more terrible judgments to follow their rejection of Christ.