Acts 7:1-16
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Stephen’s Defense
1Now the high priest said, “Are these things so?”
2And Stephen said, “Listen to me, brothers and fathers! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, 3and He said to him, ‘Go from your country and your relatives, and come to the land which I will show you.’ 4Then he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. And from there, after his father died, God had him move to this country in which you are now living. 5But He gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot of ground, and yet, He promised that He would give it to him as a possession, and to his descendants after him, even though he had no child. 6But God spoke to this effect, that his descendants would be strangers in a land that was not theirs, and they would enslave and mistreat them for four hundred years. 7‘And whatever nation to which they are enslaved I Myself will judge,’ said God, ‘and after that they will come out and serve Me in this place.’ 8And He gave him the covenant of circumcision; and so Abraham fathered Isaac, and circumcised him on the eighth day; and Isaac fathered Jacob, and Jacob, the twelve patriarchs.
9“The patriarchs became jealous of Joseph and sold him into Egypt. Yet God was with him, 10and rescued him from all his afflictions, and granted him favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and he made him governor over Egypt and his entire household.
11“Now a famine came over all Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction with it, and our fathers could find no food. 12But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our fathers there the first time. 13And on the second visit, Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family was revealed to Pharaoh. 14Then Joseph sent word and invited his father Jacob and all his relatives to come to him, seventy-five people in all. 15And Jacob went down to Egypt, and he and our fathers died there. 16And they were brought back from there to Shechem and laid in the tomb which Abraham had purchased for a sum of money from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.
Stephen Put to Death