²“Brothers and fathers, listen to me!” Stephen replied. “The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham. At that time Abraham was still in Mesopotamia. He had not yet begun living in Haran. ³‘Leave your country and your people,’ God said. ‘Go to the land I will show you.’

⁴“So Abraham left the land of Babylonia. He settled in Haran. After his father died, God sent Abraham to this land where you are now living. ⁵God didn’t give him any property here. He didn’t give him even a foot of land. But God made a promise to him and to all his family after him. He said they would possess the land. The promise was made even though at that time Abraham had no child.

⁶“Here is what God said to him. ‘Your family after you will be strangers in a country that is not their own. They will be slaves and will be treated badly for 400 years. ⁷But I will punish the nation that makes them slaves,’ God said. ‘After that, they will leave that country and worship me here.’

⁸“Then God made a covenant with Abraham. God told him that circumcision would show who the members of the covenant were. Abraham became Isaac’s father. He circumcised Isaac eight days after he was born. Later, Isaac became Jacob’s father. Jacob had 12 sons. They became the founders of the 12 tribes of Israel.

⁹“Jacob’s sons were jealous of their brother Joseph. So they sold him as a slave. He was taken to Egypt. But God was with him. ¹⁰He saved Joseph from all his troubles. God made Joseph wise. He helped him to become the friend of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. So Pharaoh made Joseph ruler over Egypt and his whole palace.

¹¹“There was not enough food for all Egypt and Canaan. This brought great suffering. Jacob and his sons couldn’t find food. ¹²But Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt. So he sent his sons on their first visit. ¹³On their second visit, Joseph told his brothers who he was. Pharaoh learned about Joseph’s family.

¹⁴“After this, Joseph sent for his father Jacob and his whole family. The total number of people was 75. ¹⁵Then Jacob went down to Egypt. There he and his family died. ¹⁶Some of their bodies were brought back to Shechem. They were placed in a tomb Abraham had bought. He had purchased it from Hamor’s sons at Shechem for a certain amount of money.

¹⁷“In Egypt the number of our people grew and grew. It was nearly time for God to make his promise to Abraham come true. ¹⁸Another king became ruler of Egypt. He knew nothing about Joseph. ¹⁹He was very evil and dishonest with our people. He beat them down. He forced them to throw out their newborn babies to die.

²⁰“At that time Moses was born. He was not an ordinary child. For three months he was taken care of by his family. ²¹Then he was placed outside. But Pharaoh’s daughter took him home. She brought him up as her own son. ²²Moses was taught all the knowledge of the people of Egypt. He became a powerful speaker and a man of action.

²³“When Moses was 40 years old, he decided to visit the people of Israel. They were his own people. ²⁴He saw one of them being treated badly by a man of Egypt. So he went to help him. He got even by killing the man. ²⁵Moses thought his own people would realize that God was using him to save them. But they didn’t.

²⁶“The next day Moses saw two men of Israel fighting. He tried to make peace between them. ‘Men, you are both of Israel,’ he said. ‘Why do you want to hurt each other?’

²⁷“But the man who was treating the other one badly pushed Moses to one side. He said, ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us? ²⁸Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ ²⁹When Moses heard this, he escaped to Midian. He lived there as a stranger. He became the father of two sons there.

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