7 ¶ Then the prince of the priests said, Are these things so?

² And he said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken. The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran,

³ and said unto him, Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and come into the land which I shall show thee.

⁴ Then he came out of the land of the Chaldaeans and dwelt in Haran; and from there, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land, in which ye now dwell.

⁵ And he gave him no inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on; 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 should sojourn in a strange land; and that they should bring them into slavery and mistreat them four hundred years.

⁷ And the Gentiles unto whom they shall be in slavery I will judge, said God; and after that they shall come forth and serve me in this place.

⁸ And he gave him the covenant of circumcision; and so Abraham begat Isaac and circumcised him the eighth day, and Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob begat 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 grace and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house.

¹¹ Now there came a famine over all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and great tribulation, and our fathers found no sustenance.

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

¹³ And in the second Joseph was made known to his brethren; and Joseph’s lineage was made known unto Pharaoh.

¹⁴ Then Joseph sent and called his father Jacob unto him and all his kindred, seventy-five souls.

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

¹⁶ who were carried over into Shechem and laid in the sepulchre that Abraham bought for a sum of money from the sons of Hamor of Shechem.

¹⁷ ¶ But when the time of the promise drew nigh, which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt,

¹⁸ until another king arose, who did not know Joseph.

¹⁹ The same dealt subtly with our kindred and mistreated our fathers so that they exposed their babies to death, to the end that the generation would cease.

²⁰ In which time Moses was born and was beautiful to God and was nourished in his father’s house three months;

²¹ and when he was put in danger, Pharaoh’s daughter took him in and nourished him as her own son.

²² And Moses was taught in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was mighty in his words and deeds.

²³ And when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the sons of Israel.

²⁴ And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him and smote the Egyptian, avenging the oppressed;

²⁵ for he supposed his brethren would have understood how that God was to give them saving health by his hand, but they had not understood.

²⁶ And the next day he showed himself unto them as they strove and urged them to peace, saying, Sirs, ye are brethren; why do ye wrong one to another?

²⁷ But he that did his neighbour wrong thrust him away, saying, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us?

²⁸ Wilt thou kill me as thou didst the Egyptian yesterday?

²⁹ Then Moses fled at this word and became a sojourner in the land of Madian, where he begat two sons.

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

³¹ When Moses saw it, he wondered at the vision; and as he drew near to consider it, the voice of the Lord came unto him,

³² saying, I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Then Moses trembled and dared not to behold.

³³ Then the Lord said to him, Put off thy shoes from thy feet; for the place where thou dost stand is holy ground.

³⁴ I have seen, I have seen the affliction of my people which is in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning and am come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send thee into Egypt.

³⁵ This Moses, whom they had refused, saying, Who made thee a prince and a judge? the same did God send as prince and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.

³⁶ He brought them out, showing wonders and signs in the land of Egypt and in the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years.

³⁷ This is that Moses, who said unto the sons of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren like unto me; him shall ye hear.

³⁸ This is he, who was in the congregation {Gr. ekklesia – called out ones} in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him in the Mount Sinai and with our fathers, who received the oracles of life to give unto us;

³⁹ to whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt,

⁴⁰ saying unto Aaron, Make us gods to go before us; for as for this Moses, who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we know not what is become of him.

⁴¹ And then they made a calf and offered sacrifice unto the idol and rejoiced in the works of their own hands.

⁴² ¶ Then God withdrew and gave them up to worship the host of the heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness?

⁴³ On the contrary, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of your god Remphan, figures which ye made 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 had appointed, speaking unto Moses that he should make it according to the fashion that he had seen,

⁴⁵ which also our fathers that came after brought in with Jesus {Joshua in Heb.} into the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drove out before the face of our fathers unto the days of David,

⁴⁶ who found grace before God and asked to provide a tabernacle for the God of Jacob.

⁴⁷ But Solomon built him a house.

⁴⁸ Howbeit the most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as saith the prophet,

⁴⁹ Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool; what house will ye build me? saith the Lord, or what is the place of my rest?

⁵⁰ Has not my hand made all these things?

⁵¹ ¶ Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do ye.

⁵² Who of the prophets have your fathers not persecuted? and they have slain those who announced before the coming of the Just One, of whom ye have now been the betrayers and murderers,

⁵³ who have received the law by the disposition of angels and have not kept it.

⁵⁴ ¶ When they heard these things, they were divided in their hearts and gnashed on him with their teeth.

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

⁵⁶ and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.

⁵⁷ And crying out with a loud voice, they stopped their ears and ran upon him with one accord;

⁵⁸ and casting him out of the city, they stoned him; and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul.

⁵⁹ And they stoned Stephen calling upon God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

⁶⁰ And he kneeled down and cried with a loud voice, Lord, impute not this sin to their charge. And having said this, he fell asleep in the Lord.