¹The high priest said , “Are these things so ?”

²He said , “Brothers and fathers , listen. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia , before he lived in Haran ,

³and said to him , ‘Get out of your land and away from your relatives , and come into a land which I will show you .’[#Genesis 12:1]

⁴Then he came out of the land of the Kasdim and lived in Haran . From there , when his father was dead, God moved him into this land where you are now living .

⁵He gave him no inheritance in it , no , not so much as to set his foot on . He promised that he would give it to him for a possession , and to his offspring after him , when he still had no child .

⁶God spoke in this way : that his offspring would live as aliens in a strange land , and that they would be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years .

⁷‘I will judge the nation to which they will be in bondage ,’ said God , ‘and after that they will come out and serve me in this place .’[#Genesis 15:13-14]

⁸He gave him the covenant of circumcision . So Abraham became the father of Isaac , and circumcised him the eighth day . Isaac became the father of Jacob , and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs .

⁹“The patriarchs , moved with jealousy against Joseph , sold him into Egypt. God was with him

¹⁰and delivered him out of all his afflictions , and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh , king of Egypt. He made him governor over Egypt and all his house .

¹¹Now a famine came over all the land of Egypt and Canaan , and great affliction . Our fathers found no food .

¹²But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers the first time .

¹³On the second time Joseph was made known to his brothers, and Joseph ’s family was revealed to Pharaoh .

¹⁴Joseph sent and summoned Jacob his father and all his relatives , seventy-five souls .

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

¹⁶and they were brought back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham bought for a price in silver from the children of Hamor of Shechem .

¹⁷“But as the time of the promise came close which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt,

¹⁸until there arose a different king who didn’t know Joseph .

¹⁹The same took advantage of our race and mistreated our fathers , and forced them to abandon their babies , so that they wouldn’t stay alive.

²⁰At that time Moses was born , and was exceedingly handsome to God . He was nourished three months in his father ’s house .

²¹When he was abandoned, Pharaoh ’s daughter took him up and reared him as her own son .

²²Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. He was mighty in his words and works .

²³But when he was forty years old , it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel .[#7:23 The word for “brothers” here and where the context allows may be also correctly translated “brothers and sisters” or “siblings.”]

²⁴Seeing one of them suffer wrong , he defended him and avenged him who was oppressed , striking the Egyptian.

²⁵He supposed that his brothers understood that God , by his hand , was giving them deliverance ; but they didn’t understand .

²⁶“The day following , he appeared to them as they fought, and urged them to be at peace again , saying , ‘Sirs, you are brothers. Why do you wrong one another ?’

²⁷But he who did his neighbor wrong pushed him away, saying , ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us ?

²⁸Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday ?’[#Exodus 2:14]

²⁹Moses fled at this saying , and became a stranger in the land of Midian , where he became the father of two sons .

³⁰“When forty years were fulfilled , an angel of the Lord appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai , in a flame of fire in a bush.

³¹When Moses saw it , he wondered at the sight . As he came close to see , the voice of the Lord came to him ,

³²‘I am the God of your fathers : the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac , and the God of Jacob .’ Moses trembled and dared not look .[#Exodus 3:6]

³³The Lord said to him , ‘Take off your sandals , for the place where you stand is holy ground .

³⁴I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their groaning . I have come down to deliver them . Now come , I will send you into Egypt.’[#Exodus 3:5,7-8,10]

³⁵“This Moses whom they refused, saying , ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge ?’—God has sent him as both a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.

³⁶This man led them out , having worked wonders and signs in Egypt, in the Sea of Suf, and in the wilderness for forty years .

³⁷This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel , ‘The Lord our God will raise up a prophet for you from among your brothers, like me .’[#7:37 TR adds “You shall listen to him.”; #Deuteronomy 18:15]

³⁸This is he who was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel that spoke to him on Mount Sinai , and with our fathers , who received living revelations to give to us ,

³⁹to whom our fathers wouldn’t be obedient , but rejected him and turned back in their hearts to Egypt,

⁴⁰saying to Aaron, ‘Make us gods that will go before us , for as for this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt, we don’t know what has become of him .’[#Exodus 32:1]

⁴¹They made a calf in those days , and brought a sacrifice to the idol , and rejoiced in the works of their hands .

⁴²But God turned away and gave them up to serve the army of the sky , as it is written in the book of the prophets ,[#7:42 This idiom could also be translated “host of heaven”, or “angelic beings”, or “heavenly bodies.”]

‘Did you offer to me slain animals and sacrifices

forty years in the wilderness , O house of Israel ?

⁴³You took up the tabernacle of Moloch ,

the star of your god Rephan ,

the figures which you made to worship ,

so I will carry you away beyond Babylon.’

⁴⁴“Our fathers had the tabernacle of the testimony in the wilderness , even as he who spoke to Moses commanded him to make it according to the pattern that he had seen ;

⁴⁵which also our fathers , in their turn , brought in with Joshua when they entered into the possession of the nations whom God drove out before the face of our fathers to the days of David ,

⁴⁶who found favor in the sight of God , and asked to find a habitation for the God of Jacob .

⁴⁷But Solomon built him a house .

⁴⁸However, the Most High doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands , as the prophet says ,

⁴⁹‘heaven is my throne ,

and the earth a footstool for my feet .

What kind of house will you build me ?’ says the Lord .

‘Or what is the place of my rest ?

⁵⁰Didn’t my hand make all these things ?’[#Isaiah 66:1-2]

⁵¹“You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears , you always resist the Holy Spirit ! As your fathers did , so you do .

⁵²Which of the prophets didn’t your fathers persecute ? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One , of whom you have now become betrayers and murderers .

⁵³You received the Torah as it was ordained by angels, and didn’t keep it !”

⁵⁴Now when they heard these things , they were cut to the heart , and they gnashed at him with their teeth .

⁵⁵But he , being full of the Holy Spirit , looked up steadfastly into heaven and saw the glory of God , and Yeshua standing on the right hand of God ,

⁵⁶and said , “Behold , I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God !”

⁵⁷But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears , then rushed at him with one accord .

⁵⁸They threw him out of the city and stoned him . The witnesses placed their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul .

⁵⁹They stoned Stephen as he called out , saying , “Lord Yeshua, receive my spirit !”

⁶⁰He kneeled down and cried with a loud voice , “Lord , don’t hold this sin against them !” When he had said this , he fell asleep .