Acts 7:1-10 ▼

1 THEN the high priest asked Stephen, Are these things so?

2 He said, Men, brethren and our fathers, harken: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was still in Mes-opo- ta’mi-a before he came to dwell in Ha’ran.

3 And he said to him, Get out of your land and from your relatives and come into the land which I shall show you.

4 Then Abraham left the land of the Chalde’ans and he came and settled in Ha’ran and from thence, after his father’s death, God removed him into this land in which you now live.

5 And 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 as an inheritance to him and to his posterity, when as yet he had no son.

6 God spoke to him and said, Your descendants will be settlers in a foreign land where they will be enslaved and mistreated for a period of four hundred years.

7 But the people to whom they will be enslaved I will condemn, said God, and after that, they shall go out and serve me in this land.

8 God gave Ab’raham the covenant of circumcision; and then Abraham begat Isaac, and circumcised him on the eighth day; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat our twelve patriarchs.

9 And our forefathers were jealous of Joseph; so they sold him into Egypt; but God was with him.

10 And he saved him from all his oppressors and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt; and Pharaoh appointed Joseph an overlord over Egypt and over all his house.