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¹ And the high priest said, Are these things so?² And he said, Men, brothers and fathers, listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran,³ and said to him, Get out of your land, and from your kindred, and come into the land which I shall show you.⁴ Then he came out of the land of the Chaldaeans, and dwelt in Haran: and from there, when his father was dead, [God] removed him into this land, wherein you now dwell:⁵ and he gave him no inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on: and he promised that he would give it to him in possession, and to his seed after him, when [as yet] he had no child.⁶ And God spoke on this wise, that his seed should sojourn in a strange land, and that they should make them slaves, and treat them ill, four hundred years.⁷ And I will judge the nation to which they will serve as slaves, God said: 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] begot Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day; and Isaac [begot] Jacob, and Jacob the twelve patriarchs.⁹ And the patriarchs, moved with jealousy against Joseph, sold him into Egypt: and God was with him,¹⁰ and delivered him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and over all his house.¹¹ Now there came a famine over all Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction: and our fathers found no sustenance.¹² But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent forth our fathers the first time.¹³ And at the second time Joseph was made known to his brothers; and Joseph's race became manifest to Pharaoh.¹⁴ And Joseph sent, and called to him Jacob his father, and all his kindred, threescore and fifteen souls.¹⁵ And Jacob went down into Egypt; and he died, himself and our fathers;¹⁶ and they were carried over to Shechem, and laid in the tomb that Abraham bought for a price in silver of the sons of Hamor in Shechem.

¹⁷ But as the time of the promise drew near which God assured to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt,¹⁸ until there arose another king over Egypt, who didn't know Joseph.¹⁹ The same dealt craftily with our race, and ill-treated our fathers, that they should cast out their babies to the end they might not live.²⁰ At which season Moses was born, and was exceeding fair; and he was nourished three months in his father's house.²¹ and when he was cast out, Pharaoh's daughter took him up, and nourished him for her own son.²² And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians; and he was mighty in his words and works.²³ But when he was well-near forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers the sons of Israel.²⁴ And seeing one [of them] suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, smiting the Egyptian:²⁵ and he supposed that his brothers understood that God by his hand was giving them deliverance; but they didn't understand.²⁶ And the day following he appeared to them as they strove, and would have set them at one again, saying, Men, you are brothers; why do you wrong one another?²⁷ But he that did his neighbor wrong thrust him away, saying, Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?²⁸ Do you want to kill me, as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?²⁹ And Moses fled at this saying, and became a sojourner in the land of Midian, where he begot two sons.

³⁰ And when forty years were fulfilled, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush.³¹ And when Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight: and as he drew near to look, there came a voice of the Lord,³² I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob. And Moses trembled, and did not dare look.³³ And the Lord said to him, Loose the shoes from your feet: for the place whereon you stand is holy ground.³⁴ I have surely seen the affliction of my people that is in Egypt, and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to deliver them: and now come, I will send you into Egypt.³⁵ This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made you a ruler and a judge? God has sent him [to be] both a ruler and a deliverer with the hand of the angel that appeared to him in the bush.³⁶ This man led them forth, having done wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness forty years.³⁷ This is that Moses, who said to the sons of Israel, God shall raise up to you a prophet from among your brothers, like me.³⁸ This is he that was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel that spoke to him in the Mount Sinai, and with our fathers: who received living oracles to give to us:³⁹ to whom our fathers would not be obedient, but thrust him from them, and turned back in their hearts to Egypt,⁴⁰ saying to Aaron, Make us gods that shall go before us: for as for this Moses, who led us forth out of the land of Egypt, we don't know what has become of him.⁴¹ And they made a calf in those days, and brought a sacrifice to the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their hands.

⁴² But God turned, and gave them up to serve the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, Did you offer to me slain beasts and sacrifices Forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?⁴³ And you took up the tabernacle of Moloch, And the star of your god Rephan, The figures which you made to worship them: And I will carry you away beyond Babylon.⁴⁴ Our fathers had the tabernacle of the testimony in the wilderness, even as he appointed who spoke to Moses, that he should make it according to the figure that he had seen.⁴⁵ Which also our fathers, in their turn, brought in with Joshua when they entered on the possession of the nations, that God thrust out before the face of our fathers, to the days of David;⁴⁶ who found favor in the sight of God, and asked to find a habitation for the house of Jacob.⁴⁷ But Solomon built him a house.⁴⁸ Nevertheless the Most High does not dwell in [houses] made with hands; as the prophet says,⁴⁹ The heaven is my throne, And the earth the footstool of my feet: What manner of house will you build me? says the Lord: Or what is the place of my rest?⁵⁰ Did not my hand make all these things?

⁵¹ You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit: as your fathers did, so do you.⁵² Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? and they killed those that showed before of the coming of the Righteous One; of whom you have now become betrayers and murderers;⁵³ you who received the law as it was appointed by angels, and did not keep it.

⁵⁴ Now when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they 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, Look, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.⁵⁷ But they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and rushed on him with one accord;⁵⁸ and they cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.⁵⁹ And they stoned Stephen, calling on and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.⁶⁰ And he knelt down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, do not lay this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.