Then the high priest asked Stephen, “Are these charges true?”
To this he replied: “Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Harran.
‘Leave your country and your people,’ God said, ‘and go to the land I will show you.’
So Abraham left the Chaldeans and lived in Harran until the time his father died.
Then God sent him to this land where you are now living.
But God did not give him any inheritance here, not even enough ground to set his foot on. Yet God promised him that he and his descendants after him would possess the land, even though at that time Abraham had no child.
God spoke plainly to Abraham, saying, ‘Your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years.
‘But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves,’ God said, ‘and afterward they will come out of that country and worship me in this place.’
Then he gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision. And so Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day. Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.
The patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into slavery in Egypt. But God was with him
and rescued him from all his troubles. He gave Joseph wisdom and enabled him to gain the goodwill of Pharaoh king of Egypt. So Pharaoh made him ruler over Egypt and all his palace.
Then a famine struck all Egypt and Canaan, bringing great suffering, and our ancestors could not find food.
When Jacob heard there was grain in Egypt, he sent our ancestors on their first visit.
On their second visit, Joseph told his brothers who he was, and Pharaoh learned about Joseph’s family.
Then Joseph sent for his father Jacob and his whole family, seventy-five in all.
Jacob went down to Egypt, where he and our ancestors died.
But Joseph’s body was carried back to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of money from the sons of Hamor at Shechem.
“As the patriarchs were dying, they made a pact and agreed to make Joseph’s bones return to Israel.
“After this, Moses was born and was remarkable in God’s sight. He was brought up in Pharaoh’s palace as his grandson.
When Moses was about forty years old, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites.
He saw one of them being mistreated, so he defended him and avenged him by killing the Egyptian.
“Moses thought his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not.
“The next day Moses came upon two Israelites fighting, and he tried to make peace by telling the one who was wrong, ‘Men, you are brothers; why are you hurting each other?’
But the man who was wrongfully attacking his neighbor pushed Moses aside and said, ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us?
Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?’
Moses fled and became a foreigner in the land of Midian, where he had two sons.
“After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai.
When Moses saw this, he was amazed at the sight. As he went over to look more closely, he heard the Lord say,
‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.’
At this, Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look.
“Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.
I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free.
Now come, I will send you back to Egypt.’
“This Moses, whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who made you ruler and judge?’ is the one God sent to be a ruler and deliverer by the angel who appeared to him in the burning bush.
He led them out of Egypt and performed wonders and signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and for forty years in the wilderness.
“This is the Moses who told the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your own people.’
He was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors.
He received living words to pass on to us.
“But our ancestors refused to obey him. Instead, they rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt.
They told Aaron, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who led us out of Egypt—we don’t know what has happened to him!’
“At that time they made a calf and brought a sacrifice to the idol and were glad to worship it.
“Then God turned away from them and gave them over to worship the sun, moon and stars, the heavenly bodies God had created.
“This agrees with what is written in the book of the prophets: ‘Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings during the forty years in the wilderness, people of Israel?
You have taken up the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan, the idols you made to worship. Therefore I will send you into exile’ beyond Babylon.
“Our ancestors had the tabernacle of testimony in the wilderness, just as God commanded Moses to make it, as a dwelling place for God.
“But the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands. As the prophet says:
‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me? says the Lord. Or where will my resting place be?
Has not my hand made all these things?’
“You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit!
Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him—
you who have received the law that was given through angels but have not obeyed it.”
This is the Patristics text that appears when you select Patristics.
