The high priest said to Stephen, “Are these things true?”
Stephen answered, “Brothers and fathers, listen to me. Our glorious God appeared to Abraham, our ancestor, in Mesopotamia before he lived in Haran. God said to Abraham, ‘Leave your country and your relatives, and go to the land I will show you.’ So Abraham left the country of Chaldea and went to live in Haran. After Abraham’s father died, God sent him to this place where you now live. God did not give Abraham any of this land, not even a foot of it. But God promised that he would give this land to him and his descendants, even before Abraham had a child. This is what God said to him: ‘Your descendants will be strangers in a land they don’t own. The people there will make them slaves and will mistreat them for four hundred years. But I will punish the nation where they are slaves. Then your descendants will leave that land and will worship me in this place.’ God made an agreement with Abraham, the sign of which was circumcision. And so when Abraham had his son Isaac, Abraham circumcised him when he was eight days old. Isaac also circumcised his son Jacob, and Jacob did the same for his sons, the twelve ancestors of our people.
“Jacob’s sons became jealous of Joseph and sold him to be a slave in Egypt. But God was with him and saved him from all his troubles. The king of Egypt liked Joseph and respected him because of the wisdom God gave him. The king made him governor of Egypt and put him in charge of all the people in his palace.
“Then all the land of Egypt and Canaan became so dry that nothing would grow, and the people suffered very much. Jacob’s sons, our ancestors, could not find anything to eat. But when Jacob heard there was grain in Egypt, he sent his sons there. This was their first trip to Egypt. When they went there a second time, Joseph told his brothers who he was, and the king learned about Joseph’s family. Then Joseph sent messengers to invite Jacob, his father, to come to Egypt along with all his relatives (seventy-five persons altogether). So Jacob went down to Egypt, where he and his sons died. Later their bodies were moved to Shechem and put in a grave there. (It was the same grave Abraham had bought for a sum of money from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.)
“The promise God made to Abraham was soon to come true, and the number of people in Egypt grew large. Then a new king, who did not know who Joseph was, began to rule Egypt. This king tricked our people and was cruel to our ancestors, forcing them to leave their babies outside to die. At this time Moses was born, and he was very beautiful. For three months Moses was cared for in his father’s house. When they put Moses outside, the king’s daughter adopted him and raised him as if he were her own son. The Egyptians taught Moses everything they knew, and he was a powerful man in what he said and did.
“When Moses was about forty years old, he thought it would be good to visit his own people, the people of Israel. Moses saw an Egyptian mistreating one of his people, so he defended the Israelite and punished the Egyptian by killing him. Moses thought his own people would understand that God was using him to save them, but they did not. The next day when Moses saw two men of Israel fighting, he tried to make peace between them. He said, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why are you hurting each other?’ The man who was hurting the other pushed Moses away and said, ‘Who made you our ruler and judge? Are you going to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ When Moses heard him say this, he left Egypt and went to live in the land of Midian where he was a stranger. While Moses lived in Midian, he had two sons.
“Forty years later an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush as he was in the desert near Mount Sinai. When Moses saw this, he was amazed and went near to look closer. Moses heard the Lord’s voice say, ‘I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ Moses began to shake with fear and was afraid to look. The Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, because you are standing on holy ground. I have seen the troubles my people have suffered in Egypt. I have heard their cries and have come down to save them. And now, Moses, I am sending you back to Egypt.’
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