Atos 7

¹ The high priest asked: »Are these things so?«

² He said: »Men, brothers and fathers, listen; The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran.

³ »He said to him: ‘Get out of your country and away from your relatives. Go to the land that I will show you.

⁴ »He went out of the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. After his father died, God moved him to this land, where you now dwell.

⁵ »He gave him no inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on. Yet he promised that he would give it to him and his seed after him for a possession. This promise was made before he had a child.

⁶ »God spoke to this effect, that his seed would be alien residents in a strange land. They would enslave them, and mistreat them for four hundred years.

⁷ ‘»I will judge the nation to whom they shall be in bondage,’ said God, ‘and after they will come serve me in this place.’

⁸ »He gave him the covenant of circumcision. Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him the eighth day. Isaac became father to Jacob and Jacob fathered the twelve family heads.

⁹ »The family heads were jealous of Joseph and sold him as a slave into Egypt. However, God was with him.

¹⁰ »And God delivered him out of all his afflictions. He gave him favor and wisdom in the sight of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Pharaoh made him governor over Egypt and his entire house.

¹¹ »A famine and great suffering came over all the land of Egypt and Canaan. Our fathers found no food.

¹² « When Jacob heard there was food in Egypt, he sent our fathers on their first visit.

¹³ »The second time Joseph got acquainted with his brothers and Pharaoh was told about Joseph’s family.

¹⁴ »Then Joseph sent for his father Jacob and all his family, seventy-five people.

¹⁵ »Jacob went down into Egypt and died, he and our fathers.

¹⁶ »Their bodies were brought to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham bought for a sum of money from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem.

¹⁷ »When the time of God’s promise to Abraham drew near, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt.

¹⁸ »Another king arose. He did not know Joseph.

¹⁹ »He dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our fathers so that they cast out their young children and they did not survive.

²⁰ »Moses was born then. He was divinely beautiful. He was nursed three months in his father’s house.

²¹ »And when he was cast out, Pharaoh’s daughter took him and nourished him as her own son.

²² »Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds.

²³ »When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers the children of Israel.

²⁴ »Seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged the oppressed one by killing the Egyptian.

²⁵ »He supposed his brothers would understand how God by his hand would deliver them but they did not understand.

²⁶ »The next day he appeared to them while they were fighting. He wanted to unite them and said, ‘You are brothers. Why do you wrong one another?’

²⁷ »The one who was treating his neighbor unjustly pushed him away, saying: ‘Who made you our ruler and judge?

²⁸ ‘»Will you kill me as you did the Egyptian yesterday?’

²⁹ »When he heard this talk Moses fled and became a stranger in the land of Median, where he became father to two sons.

³⁰ »At the end of forty years, Jehovah’s angel appeared to him in the wilderness of mount Sinai in a flame of fire in a bush. (Exodus 3:3)

³¹ When Moses saw it, he wondered at the sight. He drew near to look at it and the voice of Jehovah came to him.

³² »He said: I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Then Moses trembled and did not dare to look further.

³³ »Jehovah said: Take the sandals from your feet for the place where you stand is holy ground. (Exodus 3:5)

³⁴ »I have seen the affliction of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come to deliver them. Come, I will send you into Egypt.

³⁵ »This Moses whom they refused, saying: Who made you ruler and judge? God sent him to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel that appeared to him in the bush.

³⁶ »He brought them out. He showed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, in the Red sea, and in the wilderness forty years.

³⁷ »This is the Moses that said to the children of Israel, your God will raise up a prophet like me from your brothers.

³⁸ »This one was with our father in the congregation in the wilderness. The angel spoke to him on Mount Sinai. He received the living oracles to give to us.

³⁹ »Our fathers would not obey him. They sent him away, and in their hearts turned back again to Egypt.

⁴⁰ »They said to Aaron: Make us gods to go in front of us. We do not know what happened to this Moses, who led us out of Egypt.

⁴¹ »They made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice to the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands.

⁴² »God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven. It is written in the book of the prophets: O you house of Israel, have you offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness?

⁴³ »Yes, you took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan. You made figures to worship them. I will carry you away beyond Babylon.

⁴⁴ »Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as he had appointed, speaking to Moses, that he should make it according to the fashion that he had seen.

⁴⁵ »Which also our fathers that came after brought in with Joshua into the possession of the nations, whom God drove out before the face of our fathers, until the days of David;

⁴⁶ »Who found favor before God, and desired to find a tabernacle for the God of Jacob.

⁴⁷ »But Solomon built him a house.

⁴⁸ The most High does not dwell in houses made with hands as the prophet says,

⁴⁹ »Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool. What house will you build me? Said Jehovah God. What is the place of my rest? (Isaiah 66:1)

⁵⁰ »Did my hand make all these things?

⁵¹ »You obstinate men who are uncircumcised in heart and ears. You always resist the Holy Spirit as your fathers did.

⁵² »Which of the prophets have your fathers not persecuted? They killed those who announced in advance the coming of the righteous one whom you have betrayed and murdered.

⁵³ »You have received the law by the disposition of angels and have not obeyed it.«

⁵⁴ When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart. They gnashed their teeth at him.

⁵⁵ Being full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed intently into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

⁵⁶ He said, »Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.«

⁵⁷ Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord.

⁵⁸ They threw him out of the city, and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet. His name was Saul.

⁵⁹ They stoned Stephen. He called out: »Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!«

⁶⁰ He kneeled down and cried with a loud voice: »Jehovah, do not charge this sin against them.« After saying this he fell asleep in death.