¹Then the high priest asked, "Are these things so?"

²And he was speaking: "Men, brothers and fathers, listen. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was in Mesopotamia, before his dwelling in Haran,

³and He said to him, 'Go out from your country and from your kindred, and come into the land which I may show to you.'

⁴Then when he had gone out from the land of the Chaldeans, he dwelt in Haran; and from there, after his father died, He removed him into this land in which you yourselves now dwell,

⁵and He did not give to him an inheritance in it, not even the length of a foot, but He promised to give it to him for a possession, and to his descendants after him, there being to him no child.

⁶However God spoke thus, that his seed will be a sojourner in a strange land, and they will enslave it and mistreat it four hundred years.

⁷'And the nation to which they will be in bondage, I myself will judge,' God said, 'and after these things they will come forth and they will serve Me in this place.'

⁸And He gave to him the covenant of circumcision; and thus he begat Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day, and Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob the twelve patriarchs.

⁹And the patriarchs, having envied Joseph, sold him into Egypt; but God was with him,

¹⁰and rescued him out of all his tribulations, and gave to him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he appointed him ruler over Egypt and over all his house.

¹¹Then a famine came upon all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction, and our fathers were not finding sustenance.

¹²Now when Jacob had heard there is grain in Egypt, he sent forth our fathers first;

¹³and on the second time Joseph was recognised by his brothers, and the family of Joseph became known to Pharaoh.

¹⁴When Joseph had sent, he called for Jacob his father and all his kindred, in all seventy-five persons.

¹⁵And now Jacob went down into Egypt, and he himself died, and our fathers,

¹⁶and they were carried over into Shechem and were placed in the tomb which Abraham bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.

¹⁷Even as the time of the promise was now drawing near, that God agreed to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt,

¹⁸until another king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph.

¹⁹He, having dealt treacherously with our race, mistreated our fathers, making them abandon their infants, unto their not being given life.

²⁰In that appointed-time Moses was born, and he was beautiful to God; who was brought up three months in the house of his father;

²¹then when he was being exposed, the daughter of Pharaoh took him up and brought him up for herself, for a son.

²²And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians; now he was mighty in words and in his deeds.

²³Then when a period of forty years was fulfilled to him, it came into his mind to visit his brothers, the sons of Israel.

²⁴And when he had seen a certain one being wronged, he defended him and did vengeance for the one being oppressed, having struck down the Egyptian.

²⁵Now he was supposing his brothers to understand that God through his hand is giving salvation to them; but they did not understand.

²⁶And on the following day he appeared to those who were quarreling, and was reconciling them to peace, having said, "Men, you yourselves are brothers; why wrong one another?"

²⁷However the one mistreating the neighbour pushed him away, having said, "Who appointed you ruler and judge over us?

²⁸Surely you yourself do not desire to kill me the same way you killed the Egyptian yesterday?"

²⁹Then Moses fled at this remark and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he begat two sons.

³⁰And when forty years were passing, a messenger of the Lord appeared to him in the wilderness of the Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire of a bush.

³¹And Moses, having seen it, was marvelling at the vision; then when he is approaching to behold it, there was the voice of the Lord to him:

³²"I myself am the God of your Fathers, the God of Abraham and God of Isaac and God of Jacob." Moses, having become terrified, was not daring to look.

³³Then the Lord said to him, "Take off the sandal of your feet; for the place on which you have stood is holy ground.

³⁴When I had seen, I saw the oppression of my people in Egypt, and I have heard their groans; and I have come down to deliver them; and now come, I may send you to Egypt."

³⁵This Moses, whom they rejected, having said, "Who appointed you ruler and judge?" — him whom God has sent as both ruler and redeemer, by the hand of the messenger who had appeared to him in the bush —

³⁶this one led them out, having done wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness forty years.

³⁷This is Moses, the one who said to the sons of Israel, "A prophet for you will the Lord your God raise up out from your brothers, like me; to him you yourselves will listen."

³⁸This is the one having been in the congregation in the wilderness with the messenger who is speaking to him in Mount Sinai, and of our fathers, who received living oracles to give to us;

³⁹to whom our fathers did not want to be obedient, but they thrust him away, and they turned back in their hearts to Egypt,

⁴⁰having said to Aaron, "Make us gods who will go before us; as for this Moses who brought us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what happened to him."

⁴¹And they made a calf in those days, and offered a sacrifice to the idol, and they were rejoicing in the works of their hands.

⁴²However God turned away and delivered them to worship the host of heaven, even as it has been written in the book of the prophets: "Not slain beasts and sacrifices did you offer to Me forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?

⁴³And you took up the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan, the images that you made to worship them; and I will remove you beyond Babylon."

⁴⁴The tabernacle of the testimony was among our fathers in the wilderness, even as the One speaking to Moses had commanded to make it according to the pattern that he had seen;

⁴⁵which also our fathers, having received by succession, brought it with Joshua in the taking possession of the nations whom God drove out from the face of our fathers, until the days of David;

⁴⁶who found favor before God and asked to find a dwelling place for the house of Jacob.

⁴⁷However Solomon built the house for Him.

⁴⁸Yet the Most High does not dwell in hand-made temples, even as the prophet says:

⁴⁹"The Heaven is to Me a throne, and the earth a footstool of my feet; what kind of house will you build Me? says the Lord, or what is the place of my rest?

⁵⁰Surely my hand has made all these things?"

⁵¹Stiff-necked and uncircumcised in your hearts and in ears, you yourselves always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers also, you;

⁵²which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those having foretold about the coming of the Righteous One, of whom now you yourselves have become betrayers and murderers;

⁵³who received the law by the ordination of messengers, and not kept it.

⁵⁴Now hearing these things, they felt cut up in their hearts and were gnashing the teeth at him.

⁵⁵However he, being full of the Holy Spirit, having looked intently into the heaven, saw the glory of God, and Jesus already standing at the right hand of God,

⁵⁶and he said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened up, and the Son of Man standing already at the right hand of God."

⁵⁷Then when they had cried out in a loud voice, they held their ears and rushed with one accord upon him;

⁵⁸and when they had cast him out of the city, they were stoning him. And the witnesses laid aside their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.

⁵⁹And as they were stoning Stephen, he was calling out and saying, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."

⁶⁰Then when he had fallen on his knees, he cried in a loud voice, "Lord, may this sin not place to them." And this when he had said, he fell asleep.