¹And the high priest said, “Is this so?” ²And Stephen said: “Brethren and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, ³and said to him, ‘Depart from your land and from your kindred and go into the land which I will show you.’ ⁴Then he departed from the land of the Chaldeans, and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living; ⁵yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot’s length, but promised to give it to him in possession and to his posterity after him, though he had no child. ⁶And God spoke to this effect, that his posterity would be aliens in a land belonging to others, who would enslave them and ill-treat them four hundred years. ⁷‘But I will judge the nation which they serve,’ said God, ‘and after that they shall come out and worship me in this place.’ ⁸And he gave him the covenant of circumcision. And so Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him on the eighth day; and Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs.

⁹“And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt; but God was with him, ¹⁰and rescued him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made him governor over Egypt and over all his household. ¹¹Now there came a famine throughout all Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction, and our fathers could find no food. ¹²But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent forth our fathers the first time. ¹³And at the second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to Pharaoh. ¹⁴And Joseph sent and called to him Jacob his father and all his kindred, seventy-five souls; ¹⁵and Jacob went down into Egypt. And he died, himself and our fathers, ¹⁶and they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.

¹⁷“But as the time of the promise drew near, which God had granted to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt ¹⁸till there arose over Egypt another king who had not known Joseph. ¹⁹He dealt craftily with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants, that they might not be kept alive. ²⁰At this time Moses was born, and was beautiful before God. And he was brought up for three months in his father’s house; ²¹and when he was exposed, Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son. ²²And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds.

²³“When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the sons of Israel. ²⁴And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking the Egyptian. ²⁵He supposed that his brethren understood that God was giving them deliverance by his hand, but they did not understand. ²⁶And on the following day he appeared to them as they were quarreling and would have reconciled them, saying, ‘Men, you are brethren, why do you wrong each other?’ ²⁷But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? ²⁸Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ ²⁹At this retort Moses fled, and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.

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