Stephen is killed while entrusting himself to Jesus

Stephen sees the Son of man standing, and the hearers stone him while he prays

When they hear these things they are cut to the heart and gnash on him with their teeth. Being full of the Holy Ghost, he looks up steadfastly into heaven, sees the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and says he sees the heavens opened and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God. They cry out with a loud voice, stop their ears, run upon him with one accord, cast him out of the city, and stone him. The witnesses lay down their clothes at a young man's feet whose name is Saul.

They stone Stephen, calling upon God and saying, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.' He kneels and cries with a loud voice, 'Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.' When he has said this, he falls asleep. The killing resembles a mob action more than a carefully documented Roman-authorized trial. Stephen's prayer echoes Jesus. Martyrdom is not a goal to pursue, and the scene is not a warrant to seek death, to romanticize crowds that kill, or to treat Jewish hearers as a people defined by stoning. Saul's watching is noted; it is not yet his conversion, and it does not make him a symbol of Jews as such.

Entrusting oneself to Jesus includes refusing to make the killers a cursed people

He commends his spirit and asks that the sin not be charged to them. The vision of the standing Son of man is comfort in violence, not a technique for producing visions. Christians who read this death as proof of Jewish guilt have refused Stephen's last request.