Acts 7:1-22 ▼

1 And the chief priest said: Are these things so?

2 He replied: Brethren and fathers, hear: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, while he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran,

3 and said to him: Get out from your land, and from your kindred, and come into a land that I will show you.

4 Then he departed from the land of the Chaldeans, and dwelt in Charran; and thence, after his father died, he removed into this land, in which you now dwell.

5 And he gave him no inheritance in it, not a foot breadth: and yet he promised to give it for a possession to him, and to his posterity after him, when as yet he had no child.

6 And God spoke thus: That his posterity should sojourn in a strange land, and they should enslave them and afflict them, for four hundred years.

7 And the nation to which they shall be in bondage I will judge, said God; and after that, they shall come forth and serve me in this place.

8 And he gave him the covenant of circumcision, and thus he begot Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day; and Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot the twelve patriarchs.

9 And the patriarchs, moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt: but God was with him,

10 and delivered him from all his afflictions, and gave him favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharoah, king of Egypt: and he made him governor over Egypt, and his whole house.

11 And there came a famine, and great affliction on the whole land of Egypt, and of Chanaan: 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, on their second visit, Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and the kindred of Joseph were made known to Pharaoh.

14 And Joseph sent and called to him his father Jacob, and all his kindred, seventy-five souls.

15 And Jacob went down into Egypt, and died, himself and our fathers;

16 and they were carried over into Sychem, and laid in the sepulcher which Abraham bought for its value in silver, from the sons of Emmor, the father of Sychem.

17 And as the time of the promise which God had made with an oath to Abraham drew near, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt,

18 till another king arose, who knew not Joseph.

19 He dealt insidiously with our race, and afflicted our fathers, so that they exposed their infants, in order that they might not live.

20 At which time Moses was born; and he was exceedingly beautiful, and was nursed three months in his father's house.

21 But having been exposed, the daughter of Pharaoh took him up, and educated him as her own son.

22 And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds.