1 And the high priest said, "Are these things so?"
2 And he said, "Men, brothers and fathers, listen. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran,
3 and said to him, 'Go out from your land and from your relatives, and come into the land that I will show you.'
4 Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran; and from there, when his father was dead, God moved him into this land in which you now dwell.
5 And he gave him no inheritance in it, not so much as a foot's breadth; yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him, when as yet he had no child.
6 And God spoke thus: that his seed would be strangers in a foreign land, and that they would bring them into bondage and mistreat them four hundred years.
7 'And the nation to which they will be in bondage I will judge,' said God, 'and after that they will come out and serve me in this place.'
8 And he gave him a covenant of circumcision; and so Abraham fathered Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day; and Isaac fathered Jacob, and Jacob the twelve patriarchs.
9 "And the patriarchs, moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt. But God was with him,
10 and delivered him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh king of Egypt, who made him governor over Egypt and all his house.
11 Then a famine came upon all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction, and our fathers found no sustenance.
12 But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers the first time.
13 And the second time Joseph was made known to his brothers, and Joseph's family was disclosed to Pharaoh.
14 Then Joseph sent and called for his father Jacob and all his relatives, seventy-five souls.
15 So Jacob went down into Egypt, and he died, he and our fathers,
16 and they were carried over to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a price in silver from the sons of Hamor of Shechem.
17 "But as the time of the promise drew near which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt,
18 until another king arose who did not know Joseph.
19 He dealt craftily with our people and mistreated our fathers, forcing them to cast out their infants so that they would not survive.
20 At that time Moses was born, and he was exceedingly fair before God; and he was nourished three months in his father's house.
21 And when he was cast out, Pharaoh's daughter took him up and nourished him as her own son.
22 And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds.
23 "When he was nearing forty years of age, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel.
24 And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him and avenged the one who was oppressed, and struck the Egyptian.
25 For he supposed his brothers would have understood that God by his hand was giving them deliverance; but they did not understand.
26 And the next day he showed himself to them as they were fighting and urged them to be at peace, saying, 'Men, you are brothers; why do you wrong one another?'
27 But the one who did his neighbor wrong thrust him away, saying, 'Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?
28 Do you want to kill me as you did the Egyptian yesterday?'
29 Then Moses fled at this saying, and was a stranger in the land of Midian, where he fathered two sons.
30 "And when forty years were fulfilled, there appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush.
31 When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight; and as he drew near to behold it, the voice of the Lord came to him:
32 'I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.' And Moses began to tremble and did not venture to look.
33 And the Lord said to him, 'Put off the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.
34 I have seen, I have seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning, and I have come down to rescue them; and now come, I will send you into Egypt.'
35 "This Moses whom they refused, saying, 'Who made you a ruler and a judge?', him God sent to be ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.
36 He brought them out, after he had shown wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness forty years.
37 "This is the Moses who said to the children of Israel, 'The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your brothers, like me; you shall listen to him.'
38 This is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers; who received living oracles to give to us;
39 to whom our fathers would not be obedient, but thrust him away, and in their hearts turned back to Egypt,
40 saying to Aaron, 'Make us gods who will go before us; for this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.'
41 And they made a calf in those days, and offered a sacrifice to the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands.
42 Then God turned and gave them up to serve the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: 'Did you offer to me slain beasts and sacrifices forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?
43 Yes, you took up the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of your god Remphan, figures that you made in order to worship them; and I will carry you away beyond Babylon.'
44 "Our fathers had the tabernacle of the testimony in the wilderness, as he who spoke to Moses had appointed, that he should make it according to the pattern he had seen;
45 which our fathers also, having received it in turn, brought in with Joshua into the possession of the nations, whom God drove out before the face of our fathers, until the days of David,
46 who found favor before God and asked that he might find a dwelling for the God of Jacob.
47 But Solomon built him a house.
48 However, the Most High does not dwell in temples made by hands; as the prophet says,
49 'Heaven is my throne, and earth the footstool of my feet. What house will you build me? says the Lord; or what is the place of my rest?
50 Has not my hand made all these things?'
51 "You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.
52 Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, of whom you have now become the betrayers and murderers;
53 you who received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it."
54 When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed their teeth at him.
55 But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God,
56 and he said, "Look, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God."
57 Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and rushed upon him with one accord;
58 and having driven him out of the city, they stoned him; and the witnesses laid aside their garments at the feet of a young man whose name was Saul.
59 And they stoned Stephen as he was calling upon the Lord and saying, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."
60 Then he knelt down and cried with a loud voice, "Lord, do not lay this sin to their charge." And when he had said this, he fell asleep.