Stephen’s Address: The Call of Abraham

(Genesis 12:1–9)

Then the high priest asked [Stephen], vvv“Are these [charges] true?”

2 

And [Stephen] declared: vvv“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 Haran, 3 and told him,‘Leave your country and your kindred and go to [the] land I will show you.’[fn] 4 [So] [Abraham] left [the] land of the Chaldeans [and] settled in Haran. After his father died, [God] brought him out of that place [and] into this land vvv where you {are} now living.

5 

He gave him no inheritance vvv [here], not even a foot of ground [But] [God] promised to give possession of [the land] to [Abraham] and his descendants [even though] he did not yet have a child. 6 God told [him] that his descendants would be foreigners in a strange land, and [that] they would be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. 7 ‘[But] I will punish the nation [that] vvv enslaves them,’ God said,‘and afterward they will come forth and worship Me in this place.’[fn]

8 

Then [God] gave [Abraham] [the] covenant of circumcision, and [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.

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