1. The high priest said to Stephen, “Are these things true?”
2. Stephen answered, “Brothers and fathers, listen to me. Our glorious God appeared to Abraham, our ancestor, in Mesopotamia before he lived in Haran.
3. God said to Abraham, ‘Leave your country and your relatives, and go to the land I will show you.’
4. So Abraham left the country of Chaldea and went to live in Haran. After Abraham’s father died, God sent him to this place where you now live.
5. God did not give Abraham any of this land, not even a foot of it. But God promised that he would give this land to him and his descendants, even before Abraham had a child.
6. This is what God said to him: ‘Your descendants will be strangers in a land they don’t own. The people there will make them slaves and will mistreat them for four hundred years.
7. But I will punish the nation where they are slaves. Then your descendants will leave that land and will worship me in this place.’
8. God made an agreement with Abraham, the sign of which was circumcision. And so when Abraham had his son Isaac, Abraham circumcised him when he was eight days old. Isaac also circumcised his son Jacob, and Jacob did the same for his sons, the twelve ancestors of our people.
9. “Jacob’s sons became jealous of Joseph and sold him to be a slave in Egypt. But God was with him
10. and saved him from all his troubles. The king of Egypt liked Joseph and respected him because of the wisdom God gave him. The king made him governor of Egypt and put him in charge of all the people in his palace.