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1 Then the High Priest asked him, "Are these statements true?" 2 The reply of Stephen was, "Sirs--brethren and fathers--listen to me. God Most Glorious appeared to our forefather Abraham when he was living in Mesopotamia, before he settled in Haran, 3 and said to him, "'Leave your country and your relatives, and go into whatever land I point out to you.' 4 "Thereupon he left Chaldaea and settled in Haran till after the death of his father, when God caused him to remove into this country where you now live. 5 But he gave him no inheritance in it, no, not a single square yard of ground. And yet He promised to bestow the land as a permanent possession on him and his posterity after him--and promised this at a time when Abraham was childless. 6 And God declared that Abraham's posterity should for four hundred years make their home in a country not their own, and be reduced to slavery and be oppressed. 7 "'And the nation, whichever it is, that enslaves them, I will judge,' said God; 'and afterwards they shall come out, and they shall worship Me in this place.' Acts 7:1-7, Weymouth New Testament. Public domain.
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