¹Then the high priest said, “Are these things so, then?” ²At this he said, “Men, brothers, and fathers, listen. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia before he lived in Haran. ³And he said to him, ‘Go out of your country and away from your wider family, and come to the land which I will show you.’ ⁴Then he went out of the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran, and after his father had died, he moved him from there to this country in which you now live. ⁵And he did not give him an inheritance in it, not even a footstep, but he promised to give it him as a possession, and to his seed after him, while he still had no child. ⁶And God spoke as follows, that his seed would be foreigners in another country, and they would enslave them and treat them badly for four hundred years. ⁷‘And the nation which they will serve I will judge’, said God, ‘and after that they will come out and serve me in this place.’ ⁸And he gave him the covenant of circumcision, and so he begot Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day, and Isaac begot and did likewise with Jacob, and Jacob begot and did likewise with the twelve patriarchs. ⁹Now the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, and they sold him into Egypt, but God was with him, ¹⁰and he delivered him from all his tribulations, and he gave him grace and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh the king of Egypt, and he appointed him governor over Egypt and all his household. ¹¹Then a famine came over the whole land of Egypt and Canaan, and great tribulation, and our fathers did not find food. ¹²But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our fathers out the first time. ¹³And the second time Joseph was made known to his brothers, and Joseph's race became apparent to Pharaoh. ¹⁴Then Joseph sent them off, calling for his father Jacob and all his kin – seventy-five people. ¹⁵And Jacob went down to Egypt, and he himself died, as did our fathers. ¹⁶And they were transferred to Shechem, and they were put in the tomb which Abraham had bought for a sum of money from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem. ¹⁷And as the time of the promise which God had sworn to Abraham drew near, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt, ¹⁸until another king arose, who had not known Joseph. ¹⁹This man, contriving to outwit our race, treated our fathers badly by having their babies put out in the open so that they would not survive. ²⁰Now in this period Moses was born, and he was extremely good-looking, and he was brought up for three months in his father's house. ²¹But when he had been put out in the open, Pharaoh's daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son. ²²And Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was capable in words and deeds. ²³But when he was coming up to forty years old, the thought occurred to him to attend to his brothers, the sons of Israel. ²⁴And when he saw someone being unjustly treated, he defended and avenged the man who was being harshly dealt with by striking the Egyptian, ²⁵and he thought that his brothers would understand that God, through his action, was giving them deliverance, but they did not understand. ²⁶And on the next day, he appeared to them while they were fighting, and he urged them to make peace together, and he said, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why do you wrong each other?’ ²⁷But the one who was doing wrong to his neighbour pushed him away from himself and said, ‘Who appointed you a ruler and a judge over us? ²⁸You don't want to kill me in the way you killed the Egyptian yesterday, do you?’ ²⁹But at these words Moses fled and became a foreigner in the land of Midian, where he begot two sons. ³⁰And when forty years had passed, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in the desert of Mount Sinai in the flame of the bush on fire. ³¹And Moses saw it and wondered at the sight. And as he approached to investigate, the voice of the Lord came to him and said, ³²‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.’ But Moses was trembling, and he did not dare investigate further. ³³But the Lord said to him, ‘Unfasten the sandals on your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. ³⁴I have clearly seen the ill-treatment of my people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them. So come on now, I am going to send you to Egypt.’ ³⁵This Moses, whom they repudiated, saying, ‘Who appointed you a ruler and a judge?’ is whom God sent as a ruler and deliverer by the agency of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. ³⁶It is he who led them out, having performed miracles and signs in the land of Egypt and in the Red Sea and in the desert for forty years. ³⁷This is Moses who said to the sons of Israel, ‘The Lord our God will raise up a prophet to you from among your brothers like me.’ ³⁸This is he who was in the assembly in the desert with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and who was with our fathers, and he received a living word to give to us, ³⁹but our fathers were unwilling to be obedient to him, and they pushed him aside, and their affections were turned back to Egypt, ⁴⁰as they said to Aaron, ‘Make us gods which will go before us. For as for this Moses – who led us out of Egypt – we do not know what has become of him.’ ⁴¹And they made a calf in those days and offered a sacrifice to the idol, and they rejoiced in the works of their hands. ⁴²And God turned away and gave them up to do service to the array of the sky, as it stands written in the book of the prophets:

So I will deport you to beyond Babylon.

⁴⁴Our fathers had the tent of the testimony in the desert, as he who spoke to Moses commanded, to make it according to the model which he had seen. ⁴⁵And our fathers with Joshua also received it in turn, and they brought it in when they took possession of the country of the nations which God drove out at the advance of our fathers, up to the days of David, ⁴⁶who found grace in God's sight, and he asked if he could devise a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. ⁴⁷But Solomon built him a house. ⁴⁸Yet the Most High does not dwell in man-made shrines, as the prophet says, ⁵¹You stiff-necked and uncircumcised of heart and ears, you always resist the holy spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. ⁵²Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced the coming of the righteous one beforehand, of whom you have now become the betrayers and murderers – ⁵³you who received the law through injunctions of angels, and who did not keep it.” ⁵⁴But as they heard these things, they were cut to the quick in their hearts, and they gnashed their teeth against him. ⁵⁵But he was full of holy spirit, and looking intently towards heaven, he saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, ⁵⁶and he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened and the son of man standing at the right hand of God.” ⁵⁷Then shouting with a loud voice, they held their ears tight and rushed with one mind against him, ⁵⁸and they threw him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid the clothes down at the feet of a young man called Saul. ⁵⁹So they stoned Stephen, as he made an appeal and said, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” ⁶⁰And he knelt and shouted out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not lay this sin to their charge.” And having said this, he fell asleep.

Reference(s) in Chapter 7: v.2 ↔ Genesis 11:31 ● v.3 ↔ Genesis 12:1 ● v.5 ↔ Genesis 13:15 ● v.6 ↔ Genesis 15:13 ● v.7 ↔ Genesis 15:14, Exodus 3:12 ● v.16 ↔ Genesis 33:19 ● v.27 ↔ Exodus 2:14 ● v.28 ↔ Exodus 2:14 ● v.32 ↔ Exodus 3:6 ● v.33 ↔ Exodus 3:5 ● v.34 ↔ Exodus 3:7, Exodus 3:8, Exodus 3:10 ● v.35 ↔ Exodus 2:14 ● v.37 ↔ Deuteronomy 18:15, Deuteronomy 18:18 ● v.40 ↔ Exodus 32:1 ● v.42 ↔ Amos 5:25 ● v.43 ↔ Amos 5:26, Amos 5:27 ● v.44 ↔ Exodus 25:9, Exodus 25:40, Exodus 26:30 ● v.49 ↔ Isaiah 66:1 ● v.50 ↔ Isaiah 66:2.