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¹ And the high priest asked him: Are these things so?² And he said: Men, brethren, and our fathers, hear ye. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, when he was between the rivers, before he came to reside in Charran;³ and he said to him: Depart from thy country, and from thy kindred, and go to a land which I will show to thee.⁴ And then Abraham departed from the land of the Chaldeans, and came and dwelt in Charran. And from there, after his father had died, God removed him to this land, in which ye this day dwell.⁵ And he did not give him an inheritance in it, not even a foot-track: but he promised that he would give it him, as an inheritance to him and to his seed, when as yet he had no son.⁶ And God conversed with him, and said to him: Thy seed will be a sojourner in a foreign land; and they will reduce it to servitude, and will treat it ill, during four hundred years.⁷ And the nation, to whom they perform bondservice, I will judge saith God. And afterwards, they will go out, and will worship me in this land.⁸ And he gave them the covenant of circumcision. And then he begat Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day. And Isaac begat Jacob: and Jacob begat our twelve fathers.⁹ And those our fathers envied Joseph, and sold him into Egypt: but God was with him,¹⁰ and delivered: him from all his afflictions; and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and he made him chief over Egypt, and over all his house.¹¹ And there was a famine and great distress in all Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, and our fathers lacked food.¹² And when Jacob heard that there was bread-stuff in Egypt, he sent our fathers a first time.¹³ And when they went the second time, Joseph made himself known to his brethren; and the kindred of Joseph was known to Pharaoh.¹⁴ And Joseph sent and brought is father Jacob, and all his family; and they were in number seventy and five souls.¹⁵ And Jacob went down into Egypt; and he died there, he and our fathers.¹⁶ And he was transported to Sychem, and was deposited in the sepulchre which Abraham bought with money of the sons of Emmor.

¹⁷ And when the time arrived for that which God had promised to Abraham with an oath, the people had multiplied and become strong, in Egypt:¹⁸ until there arose another king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph.¹⁹ And he dealt craftily with our kindred, and ill-treated our fathers, and gave orders that their infants should be cast away, and should not live.²⁰ At that time was Moses born; and he was lovely to God: and he was nursed three months in his father's house.²¹ And when he was cast out, by his people, the daughter of Pharaoh found him, and brought him up for her own son.²² And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians; and he was eminent in his words, and also in his deeds.²³ And when he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel.²⁴ And he saw one of the race of his kindred treated with violence; and he avenged him, and did him justice, and killed the Egyptian who had abused him.²⁵ And he supposed that his brethren the sons of Israel would have understood, that by his hand God would give them deliverance; but they understood not.²⁶ And on another day, he appeared to them, as they were quarrelling one with another. And he exhorted them to become reconciled, saying: Men, ye are brethren; why do ye seek to harm each other?²⁷ But he who did the wrong to his fellow, repulsed him from him, and said to him: Who constituted thee a ruler and a judge over us?²⁸ Dost thou seek to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian yesterday?²⁹ And Moses fled at that speech, and became a sojourner in the land of Midian. And he had two sons.

³⁰ And when forty years had been passed by him there, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in the wilderness of mount Sinai, in a fire that burned in a bush.³¹ And when Moses saw [fn] , he admired the sight: and as he drew near to behold [fn] , the Lord said to him, audibly: ³² I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob. And Moses trembled, and dared not to gaze at the sight.³³ And the Lord said to him: Loose thy shoes from thy feet; for the ground on which thou standest is holy.³⁴ I have attentively seen the affliction of my people, who are in Egypt; and I have heard their groans, and have come down to deliver them. And now, come, I will send thee to Egypt.³⁵ This Moses, whom they rejected, saying, Who constituted thee a ruler and judge over us? this same did God, by the hand of the angel that appeared to him in the bush, send to them to be their captain and deliverer.³⁶ He it was that brought them out, working signs and wonders and prodigies in the land of Egypt, and at the sea of rushes, and in the desert, forty years.³⁷ This Moses is the man who said to the children of Israel: A prophet, like me, will the Lord God raise up to you from among your brethren; to him give ear.³⁸ He it was, who was in the congregation in the wilderness, with the angel that conversed with him and with our fathers at mount Sinai; and he it was, received the living words to give [fn] to us. ³⁹ And our fathers would not hearken to him, but forsook him, and in their hearts returned again to Egypt;⁴⁰ when they said to Aaron: Make us gods who may go before us; because, as for this Moses who brought us from the land of Egypt, we know not what hath become of him.⁴¹ And he made them a calf in those days; and they offered sacrifices to idols, and were voluptuous with the work of their hands.

⁴² And God turned away, and gave them up to worship the hosts of heaven: as it is written in the book of the prophets: Did ye, for forty years, in the wilderness, present to me a slain animal or a sacrifice, ye sons of Israel?⁴³ But ye bore the tabernacle of Malchum, and the star of the god Rephon, images which ye had made, that ye might bow down to them. I will transport you beyond Babylon.⁴⁴ Lo, the tabernacle of the testimony of our fathers, was in the wilderness; as he who talked with Moses, commanded to make it after the form which he showed him.⁴⁵ And this same tabernacle, our fathers, with Joshua, actually brought into the land which God gave to them for an inheritance from those nations which he drove out before them; and it was borne about, until the days of David.⁴⁶ He found favor before God; and he requested, that he might find a residence for the God of Jacob.⁴⁷ But Solomon built the house.⁴⁸ Yet the most High lodgeth not in a work of [fn] hands; as saith the prophet: ⁴⁹ Heaven is my throne, and earth the footstool under my feet. What is the house, ye will build for me? saith the Lord: or, what is the place of my repose?⁵⁰ Lo, hath not my hand made all these things?

⁵¹ O ye stiff of neck, and uncircumcised in their heart, and in their hearing; ye do always set yourselves against the Holy Spirit; as your fathers, so also ye.⁵² For, which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute and kill, [fn] them, who foretold the coming of the Just One, whom ye delivered up and slew? ⁵³ And ye have received the law by the ordination of angels, and have not kept it.

⁵⁴ And when they heard these things, they were filled with rage in their souls; and they gnashed their teeth against him.⁵⁵ And he, as he was full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, looked towards heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.⁵⁶ And he said: Lo, I see heaven open, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.⁵⁷ And they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and all rushed upon him.⁵⁸ And they seized him, and hurried him out of the city, and stoned him. And they who testified against him, laid their clothes at the feet of a certain young man who was called Saul.⁵⁹ And they stoned Stephen, while he prayed and said: Our Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.⁶⁰ And when he had kneeled down, he cried with a loud voice, and said: Our Lord, establish not this sin against them. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.