1The high priest said, "Are these things so?"
2And he said, "Brothers and fathers, listen: the God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,
3and said to him: 'Depart from your land and from your relatives, and come into the land that I will show you.'
4Then he departed from the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran; and from there, after his father died, God had him move to this land in which you are now living.
5But God gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot of ground; yet He promised that He would give it to him as a possession, and to his descendants after him, even though he had no child.
6But God spoke to this effect, that his descendants would be strangers in a foreign land, and that they would be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years.
7'And whatever nation they serve as slaves I will krino(judge),' said God, 'and after that they will come out and worship Me in this place.'
8And He gave him the covenant of circumcision; and so Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him on the eighth day; and Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs.
9The patriarchs, being jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt; and yet God was with him,
10and rescued him from all his afflictions, and granted him charis(grace) and sophia(wisdom) in the sight of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and he made him governor over Egypt and his entire household.
11Now a famine came over all Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction, and our fathers could find no food.
12But Jacob, hearing that there was grain in Egypt, sent our fathers there the first time.
13And on the second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph's family was revealed to Pharaoh.
14Then Joseph sent and invited Jacob his father and all his relatives to come to him, seventy-five psyche(soul)s in all.
15And Jacob went down to Egypt, and he and our fathers died there.
16And they were moved to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had purchased for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem.
17But as the chronos(chronological-time) of the promise drew near which God had sworn to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt,
18until there arose another king over Egypt who did not know Joseph.
19It was he who dealt shrewdly with our race and mistreated our fathers so that they would expose their infants so that they would not survive.
20It was at this kairos(appointed-time) that Moses was born; and he was pleasing to God, and he was nurtured for three months in his father's house.
21And after he had been set outside, Pharaoh's daughter took him up and nurtured him as her own son.
22And Moses was educated in all the sophia(wisdom) of the Egyptians, and he was powerful in his logos(word)s and deeds.
23But when he was approaching the age of forty, it came into his kardia(heart, soul-domain) to visit his brothers, the sons of Israel.
24And when he saw one of them being treated unjustly, he defended him and took vengeance for the oppressed man by striking down the Egyptian.
25And he supposed that his brothers would understand that God was granting them Salvation through his hand, but they did not understand.
26And on the following day he appeared to them as they were quarreling, and he tried to reconcile them in eirene(peace), saying, 'Men, you are brothers; why do you wrong one another?'
27But the one who was wronging his neighbor pushed him away, saying, 'Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?
28You do not want to kill me in the same way you killed the Egyptian yesterday, do you?'
29And Moses fled at this logos(word) and became a stranger in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.
30And after forty years were fulfilled, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning bush.
31When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight; and as he approached to look more closely, the voice of the Lord came to him.
32'I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.' And Moses was trembling and dared not look closely.
33But the Lord said to him, 'Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.
34I have certainly seen the oppression of My people in Egypt and have heard their groaning, and I have come down to rescue them; and now come, I will send you to Egypt.'
35This Moses whom they disowned, saying, 'Who made you a ruler and a judge?' — this man God sent as both ruler and redeemer through the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.
36This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in the land of Egypt and in the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years.
37This is the Moses who said to the sons of Israel: 'God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.'
38This is the one who was in the ekklesia(called-out community) in the wilderness together with the angel who was speaking to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, who received living logia(oracle-word)s to pass on to us.
39This is the one our fathers were unwilling to be obedient to, but pushed aside; and in their kardia(heart, soul-domain)s they turned back to Egypt,
40saying to Aaron, 'Make gods for us who will go before us; for this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt — we do not know what happened to him.'
41And they made a calf in those days and brought a sacrifice to the idol, and were rejoicing in the works of their hands.
42But God turned away and gave them over to serve the host of heaven, as it is written in the biblos(book) of the prophets: 'You did not offer to Me slaughtered animals and sacrifices for forty years in the wilderness, did you, house of Israel?
43You also took up the tabernacle of Moloch and the star of the god Rompha, the images which you made to worship; and I will remove you beyond Babylon.'
44Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, just as He who spoke to Moses directed him to make it according to the pattern which he had seen.
45And receiving it in their turn, our fathers brought it in with Joshua upon dispossessing the nations that God drove out before our fathers, until the days of David.
46He found charis(grace) before God, and asked that he might find a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.
47But it was Solomon who built a house for Him.
48Yet the Most High does not dwell in things made by hands, as the prophet says:
49'Heaven is My throne, and earth is the footstool of My feet; what kind of house will you build for Me?' says the Lord, 'or what place is there for My rest?
50Was it not My hand that made all these things?'
51You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in kardia(heart, soul-domain) and ears — you are always resisting the hagio(holy) pneuma(spirit); as your fathers did, so do you.
52Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become —
53you who received the nomos(law) as ordained by angels, and yet did not keep it."
54Now when they heard this, they were cut to the quick in their kardia(heart, soul-domain)s and were gnashing their teeth at him.
55But being full of hagio(holy) pneuma(spirit), he gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Yeshua(Jesus) standing at the right hand of God;
56and he said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God."
57But they cried out with a loud voice and covered their ears and rushed at him with one mind,
58and when they had driven him out of the city, they began stoning him; and the witnesses laid aside their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul.
59And they went on stoning Stephen as he called out and said, "Lord Yeshua(Jesus), receive my pneuma(spirit)."
60And falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them!" And having said this, he fell asleep.