Acts of the Apostles Chapter 7 Vs 1-38
Stephen's Discourses.
1Then the high priest asked, "Is this so?"2a And he replied,* "My brothers and fathers, listen. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was in Mesopotamia,* before he had settled in Haran,3and said to him, 'Go forth from your land and [from] your kinsfolk to the land that I will show you.'b4So he went forth from the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. And from there, after his father died, he made him migrate to this land where you now dwell.c5Yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot's length, but he did promise to give it to him and his descendants as a possession, even though he was childless.d6And God spoke thus,e 'His descendants shall be aliens in a land not their own, where they shall be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years;7but I will bring judgment on the nation they serve,' God said, 'and after that they will come out and worship me in this place.'f8Then he gave him the covenant of circumcision, and so he became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him on the eighth day, as Isaac did Jacob, and Jacob the twelve patriarchs.g
9"And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into slavery in Egypt; but God was with himh10and rescued him from all his afflictions. He granted him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, who put him in charge of Egypt and [of] his entire household.i11Then a famine and great affliction struck all Egypt and Canaan, and our ancestors could find no food;j12but when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our ancestors there a first time.k13The second time, Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph's family became known to Pharaoh.l14Then Joseph sent for his father Jacob, inviting him and his whole clan, seventy-five persons;m15and Jacob went down to Egypt. And he and our ancestors diedn16and were brought back to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had purchased for a sum of money from the sons of Hamor at Shechem.o
17"When the time drew near for the fulfillment of the promise that God pledged to Abraham, the people had increased and become very numerous in Egypt,p18until another king who knew nothing of Joseph came to power [in Egypt].q19He dealt shrewdly with our people and oppressed [our] ancestors by forcing them to expose their infants, that they might not survive.20At this time Moses was born, and he was extremely beautiful. For three months he was nursed in his father's house;r21but when he was exposed, Pharaoh's daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son.s22Moses was educated [in] all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in his words and deeds.
23t "When he was forty years old, he decided to visit his kinsfolk, the Israelites.24When he saw one of them treated unjustly, he defended and avenged the oppressed man by striking down the Egyptian.25He assumed [his] kinsfolk would understand that God was offering them deliverance through him, but they did not understand.26u The next day he appeared to them as they were fighting and tried to reconcile them peacefully, saying, 'Men, you are brothers. Why are you harming one another?'27Then the one who was harming his neighbor pushed him aside, saying, 'Who appointed you ruler and judge over us?28Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?'29Moses fled when he heard this and settled as an alien in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.v
30w "Forty years later, an angel appeared to him in the desert near Mount Sinai in the flame of a burning bush.31When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight, and as he drew near to look at it, the voice of the Lord came,32'I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob.' Then Moses, trembling, did not dare to look at it.33But the Lord said to him, 'Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.34I have witnessed the affliction of my people in Egypt and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to rescue them. Come now, I will send you to Egypt.'35This Moses, whom they had rejected with the words, 'Who appointed you ruler and judge?' God sent as [both] ruler and deliverer, through the angel who appeared to him in the bush.x36This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the desert for forty years.y37It was this Moses who said to the Israelites, 'God will raise up for you, from among your own kinsfolk, a prophet like me.'z38It was he who, in the assembly in the desert, was with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our ancestors, and he received living utterances to hand on to us.a