Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, “Which,” He said, “you heard of from Me;

But He said to them, “It is not for you to know periods of time or appointed times which the Father has set by His own authority;

Therefore, since He has been exalted at the right hand of God, and has received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father, He has poured out this which you both see and hear.

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His servant Jesus, the one whom you handed over and disowned in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release Him.

It is you who are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God ordained with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’

who by the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of our father David Your servant, said, ‘Why were the nations insolent, And the peoples plotting in vain?

The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you put to death by hanging Him on a cross.

And Stephen said, “Listen to me, brothers and fathers! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,

Then he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. And from there, after his father died, God had him move to this country in which you are now living.

And He gave him the covenant of circumcision; and so Abraham fathered Isaac, and circumcised him on the eighth day; and Isaac fathered Jacob, and Jacob, the twelve patriarchs.

“Now a famine came over all Egypt and Canaan, and great affliction with it, and our fathers could find no food.

But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our fathers there the first time.

Then Joseph sent word and invited his father Jacob and all his relatives to come to him, seventy-five people in all.

And Jacob went down to Egypt, and he and our fathers died there.

It was he who shrewdly took advantage of our nation and mistreated our fathers in order that they would abandon their infants in the Nile, so that they would not survive.

At this time Moses was born; and he was beautiful to God. He was nurtured for three months in his father’s home.

At this remark, Moses fled and became a stranger in the land of Midian, where he fathered two sons.

‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob.’ Moses shook with fear and did not dare to look closely.

This is the one who was in the assembly in the wilderness together with the angel who spoke to him at length on Mount Sinai, and who was with our fathers; and he received living words to pass on to you.

Our fathers were unwilling to be obedient to him; on the contrary they rejected him and turned back to Egypt in their hearts,

“Our fathers had the tabernacle of testimony in the wilderness, just as He who spoke to Moses directed him to make it according to the pattern which he had seen.

Our fathers in turn received it, and they also brought it in with Joshua upon dispossessing the nations that God drove out from our fathers, until the time of David.

“You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did.

Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, and you have now become betrayers and murderers of Him;

The God of this people Israel chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with an uplifted arm He led them out from it.