Stephen Opens with Abraham’s Call
The high priest said, "Are these things so?"
He said, "Brothers and fathers, listen. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,
and said to him, ‘Get out of your land, and from your relatives, and come into a land which I will show you.’
Then he came out of the land of the Chaldaeans, and lived in Haran. From there, when his father was dead, God moved him into this land, where you are now living.
He gave him no inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on. He promised that he would give it to him in possession, and to his seed after him, when he still had no child.
God spoke thus, that his seed would live as aliens in a strange land, and that they would be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years.
‘I will judge the nation to which they will be in bondage,’ said God, ‘and after that will they come out, and serve me in this place.’
He gave him the covenant of circumcision. So Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day. Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.
